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Tar Sands Protest: 'When Ordinary People do Extraordinary Things'
Crisis clarifies our deepest beliefs and affections, our spirituality. In turn, these moments of great clarity prompt ordinary people to do extraordinary things -- and historic changes happen.
Fifty-some years ago the Freedom Riders defied Klu Klux Klan church bombings and bus burnings to end racial segregation in the Jim Crow South.
Today, the crisis is catastrophic climate change -- carbon pollution that threatens all life on our planet -- and a new generation of Freedom Riders is returning home from peaceful protests, and mass arrests, at the White House.
The sheer dignity and poise of the demonstrators is stunning as you view the photographs – wave after wave -- day after day for two weeks -- more than twelve hundred people stepped forward, peacefully sat down in front of the White House fence and were arrested. This was the largest act of civil disobedience on this continent during this century.
They are asking President Obama to deny a permit for one of the oil industry’s pet projects – the Keystone XL Pipeline – a project that noted NASA climate scientist James Hansen says is literally the fuse on North America’s largest carbon bomb: the massive Tar Sands oil extraction project in Alberta, Canada. The decision is Obama’s alone, not Congress’.
The oil industry wants a pipeline from the Tar Sands to a deepwater port, enabling them to pump oil to the global market. Opposition from Canadian citizens has discouraged them from proposing a pipeline west from Alberta to the Pacific coast. Now, the oil developers want to run a pipeline through the Plains States to the Gulf Coast in Texas.
Local resistance is ferocious. Nebraska’s governor and both U.S. Senators that represent that state have come out against the project. Bloomberg News put it like this: “The bottom line: A $7 billion pipeline from Canada has angered Nebraska farmers and ranchers who value the state’s precious water over oil.”
Nebraska rancher Randy Thompson thanked the White House protesters. Part of his message said this: “It is time that the American people send a message to the big oil companies and their political allies, and that message is this: We are fed up with having our livelihoods and natural resources put at risk just for the sake of corporate profit . . . “
Thompson’s message arrived at a protest that had its share of notables. Many well-known figures were among those arrested at the White House -- scientist James Hansen, authors Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein, actor Danny Glover and actress Darryl Hannah.
Someone I know was among the demonstrators. Through her I know of the process she and her twelve hundred colleagues went through as they prepared for their day of mindfulness – and their subsequent arrest -- at the White House.
Their processional began with travel to Washington D.C. There, reflective, meditative thought on their motives centered them. Training in the principles of nonviolent direct action prepared them for the challenges to come.
Milwaukee’s Terry Wiggins lives in the Harambee neighborhood and aptly she was arrested on the designated Interfaith Day of the Tar Sands Protest, August 29.
She is a familiar figure in local efforts to build resilient communities, and transition from an oil-dependent economy to a liveable, just and sustainable future for all.
I know Wiggins as a hard-working member of the Interfaith Earth Network, a vibrant network of congregational environmental teams representing a diverse range of metropolitan area faith communities.
Last October we worked together to organize a “Celebration of the Power of Interfaith Earth Networking” event at the Urban Ecology Center. Live music, a parade of giant eco-puppets and prayers for the Earth from different faith communities led into a high energy day of visiting. Show-and-tell displays illustrated projects congregations were working on for a more sustainable, more green future. The enthusiasm among the several hundred faith activists attending was contagious.
I came away from that day with a vivid sense of place of the Greater Milwaukee area – a sense that this is a landscape not just of polluting power plants -- but where a broad spectrum of folks were working away at reducing our dependence on fossil fuel by solar energy projects and energy conservation – and greening the land with urban vegetable gardens and other sustainability projects.
I believe the American people are a can-do people, and are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work on climate change and sustainable energy. They just aren’t getting much help from Washington.
Climate change can seem overwhelming -- but stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline is one concrete step we can do now, this fall. President Obama has until late November to make his decision.
Now is the time to speak up for common sense, conservation -- and no permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Crisis prompts ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
20 Comments so far
Show AllWill Obama approve the pipeline? Do bears shit in the woods? It will take acts of resistance on the ground, including sabotage, to have a prayer of stopping this abominable project.
Will Weak Man sign off on it, or throw a bone to what's left of his fan base (for their votes)? Will be interesting to watch.
Even after Obama approves the pipeline, surely the Senators from Nebraska can "monkey wrench" it to death in the Senate. There are lots of ways to stall things fosrever in that august body.
The U.S. Senate gets no binding say on this one unless the U.S. Congress (which includes the U.S. House of Representatives) passes a law that includes something about the Keystone XL pipeline.
Because TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline crosses the U.S. / Canadian border the U.S. State Department and the President have the final say on whether or not the permit for the pipeline is approved.
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Excerpt from "McKibben: What Comes Next for Tar Sands Action", a "letter" from Bill McKibben via Climate Guest Blogger on September 7, 2011:
We’re still planning something big for October 7th or 8th – the 7th is the date of the last State Department hearing in Washington, DC – but first we need to go back into our communities to keep building this movement. The White House is going to be watching to see if our sit-in was an isolated incident or whether there really is a movement of people across this country rising up to stop the pipeline.
First, we need to tell the story of what just happened in Washington by meeting with folks in our communities to talk about our experiences. This could be as simple as a small gathering in your home, or as elaborate as you’d like. Your story is the most powerful tool you have to keep building this movement. A few of our organizers got together to make a PowerPoint slideshow that you can use in a meetup, and if you’d like to host an event in your community to spread the word, sign up here: http://www.tarsandsaction.org/meet-up
Second, all around the country, people will be going to Obama campaign offices in polite but firm fashion to remind him that we took him seriously—that he shouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it. Watch this video that just arrived from Seattle to get a sense of what we have in mind. We’ll be trying to coordinate this work from city to city—if you’re willing to help in your town, and are certain you can deliver a calm, stern message, sign up here: http://www.tarsandsaction.org/office-visits/
That’s our plan for now. I want to make sure that we use this opportunity to strengthen our connections with each other, and make this a true movement. This is your opportunity to start taking a leadership role in this campaign.
We’ll be giving you updates on plans for the 7th of course, and letting you know what’s up. We have no guarantee we’ll succeed, but thanks to you this fight is very much on!
– Bill McKibben for tarsandsaction.org
PS – We’re very aware that the federal government has scheduled the hearing on the 7th for Yom Kippur. With whatever action we take, we will make sure our Jewish brothers and sisters will be able to join us.
Article URL: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/07/313522/mckibben-what-comes-next-for-tar-sands-action/
The American people would be glad to "roll up their sleeves and get to work on climate change and sustainable energy," but they won't do it until someone is a leadership position such as President of the United States tells them that 1) it is a crisis, 2) it can be solved if we all do these things, 3) these are the things that we must do. Of course, they all say stuff like that but for now it's all posturing for electioneering effects and they don't really mean it.
By the time someone comes along who can convincingly say it and mean it in such a way as to be truly heard, it will probably be too late.
I have to respect and applaud the sacrifice of the 1,200 who got themselves arrested to object to the way things are going. But there's something about the polite, orderly nature of "civil disobedience" circa 2011 which rings hollow, especially when compared to civil rights era actions such as the Freedom Rides. Consider King's description of "nonviolent direct action," out of Letter From a Birmingham Jail:
"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored... I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth."
Has this square-dance with DC police succeeded in creating such tension? Are the tactics of movement leaders likely to create any significant tension going forward? Consider McKibben's words about what comes next:
"We don’t want the President to be able to hide from the decisions he’s making. And we’re not going to do him the favor of attacking him. Instead, we’re going to pay him the dangerous compliment of taking his words from 2008 seriously... all around the country, people will be going to Obama campaign offices in polite but firm fashion to remind him that we took him seriously—that he shouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it."
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/07/313522/mckibben-what-comes-next-for-tar-sands-action/
Or else what? This president cannot be pressured in the absence of some substantive threat. McKibben talks as if pressuring or threatening Obama is beyond the pale - too confrontational to be constructive. Eric Hansen is impressed by the "sheer dignity and poise of the demonstrators." Somehow "civil disobedience" has come to mean "making nice disobedience."
Hmm. Making nice? Jeesh!
While at the square dance with the DC police in front of the White House.
I never thought that was what the "civil" in civil disobedience was necessarily supposed to mean.
I admit I was impressed when protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square focused their anger on ousting Hosni Murbarak, rather than turning their anger on small businesses near the square. They worked together to take care of each other and even cleaned up the square several times, all in the face of considerable danger.
But hell, I wouldn't describe the protests in Tahrir Square or in Madison, Wisconsin for that matter, as conducted in polite but firm fashion.
According to McKibben: "We don’t want the President to be able to hide from the decisions he’s making. And we’re not going to do him the favor of attacking him. Instead, we’re going to pay him the dangerous compliment of taking his words from 2008 seriously."
Wow, that really does sound dangerous! :>(
I too have to respect and applaud the sacrifice of the 1,200 who got themselves arrested to object to the way things are going. But there must be a better way to turn up the heat.
If the McKibben's plan is to send small contingents of polite, "smartly" dressed people into local Obama campaign headquarters around the country to deliver the message that Obama must deny the Keystone XL pipeline permit, can't they at least add a noisy chorus outside consisting of a rowdy crowd dressed in jeans and whatnot, regularly raising a ruckus in protest against the Keystone XL pipeline on a daily or weekly basis or something. Something that could at least vaguely be considering a form of harassment.
Of course, neither visiting local Obama campaign headquarters nor protesting outside is civil disobedience, not even of the "making nice" square dancing with the cops kind.
Get involved and show us what your words mean- you are more hollow than a dry piece of straw.
Some of those extraordinary things should involve legally picketing the homes of executives and business headquarters of the companies proposing to build the pipeline, including those of politicians who support it.
YES!! Good comment and suggestion, do you have list or a proposal for creating one?
I see ordinary people doing ordinary things (i.e. losing on all fronts) WHILE WEARING OBAMA CAMPAIGN GEAR. Sheesh.
Actual-whatever - Get involved, actual leftists are activists, and educators, not doing anything but sniveling is Not Actually Being A leftist.
I am truly thankful for those who protested in front of the White House. The rest of us must at least keep reminding Obama of the promises he made related to climate change and clean energy, promises that he has not kept. We must keep writing letters, sending e-mails, making phone calls and supporting the many good environmental organizations -- one such action every day, for each of us. Let's show that we can be as stubborn about this issue as representatives of the Greedy One Percent have been in Congress.
My Reply:
Helen Hanna,
Well, I certainly wouldn't tell anyone that they shouldn't keep writing letters, sending e-mails, making phone calls to remind Barack Obama of the promises he made related to climate change and clean energy.
But I don't think that will be any more politically effective than posting comments here on Common Dreams. I think that's particularly true, if nothing much more is planned than what Bill McKibben has outline in his letter "McKibben: What Comes Next for Tar Sands Action."
Letter URL: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/07/313522/mckibben-what-comes-next-for-tar-sands-action/
In fact while people were getting arrested I did send email to Obama and three Democratic U.S. Senators and two Democratic U.S. Representatives and independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, although the letters I sent to the Democrats were not polite reminders of Obama's "promises."
Here are copies of the text of two of those letters.
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President Barack Obama,
I am writing in adamant opposition to TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, which would connect Texas and the world to the filthy and ecocidal tar sand synthetic oil of Alberta, Canada.
I am angry and thoroughly disgusted that the State Department has rubber-stamped environmental approvals despite the major threats the TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline poses to climate, land, and water.
Your administration has done nothing of any significance to counter global warming or catastrophic climate change, and build a green economy.
So far your administration's policies on the environment, energy security, the economy, health care, re-regulation of the financial industry, numerous crimes committed by various corporations and the Bush-Cheney administration including but not limited to the BP Oil Spill, financial fraud and torture, the federal budget, and war and occupation have favored large corporations and the wealthy at the expense of everyone else in the United States and around the world.
By steadfastly supporting tar sands, fracking and other new generation fossil fuels; your government is locking the United States and the world into decades of continued addiction to fossil fuels that will cause abrupt and catastrophic climate change, accelerate the rate of massive plant and animal extinction, greatly increase human misery, increase global instability and insecurity, displace hundreds of millions of people, and cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, while destroying precious water and land ecosystems.
Ultimately, the ability to refuse approval for TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline rests with you.
Under no circumstances should you approve a "presidential permit" allowing TransCanada or anyone else to build a tar sands oil pipeline across the Canadian border and across the United States to the Gulf of Mexico or any other destination in the United States.
Like your predecessors George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, you have brought nothing but shame and despair to the nation.
I fully support the protesters in Washington, D.C. protesting against dirty tar sands oil and the KeyStone XL pipeline.
Granting such a permit to TransCanada would be a crime against humanity and a crime against nature, and completely unforgiveable!
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Senator . . . ,
The U.S. Congress and the Obama administration have done nothing of any significance to counter global warming, catastrophic climate change, and build a green economy.
Democratic President Barack Obama has the authority to deny a "presidential permit" to TransCanada, thereby preventing them from building a tar sands oil pipeline across the Canadian border and across the United States.
This is a "No excuses! Put up or shut up!" moment for Barack Obama.
As NASA climatologist James Hansen has described our circumstances, building the pipeline will be a "game over" act for countering global warming and catastrophic climate change.
Under no circumstances should Barack Obama approve a "presidential permit" allowing TransCanada or anyone else to build a tar sands oil pipeline across the Canadian border and across the United States.
I support the protesters in Washington, D.C. protesting against dirty tar sands oil and the KeyStone XL pipeline.
Granting such a permit to TransCanada would be a crime against humanity and a crime against nature, and completely unforgiveable!
You Senator must speak out in public against the KeyStone XL pipeline.
Call Barack Obama! Visit the White House! Tell Obama no!
My Reply:
Helen Hanna,
The Cap and Trade approach to putting a premium on the price of fossil carbon is seriously flaw. The Cap and Trade legislation proposed during the last Congress, flawed as such legislation inherently, is was even further compromised in both the House and the Senate.
NASA Climatologist and many economist favor a simpler more reliable way to put a premium on the price of fossil carbon called Fee and Rebate (or Dividend).
You might also consider writing Barack Obama and your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives recommending the implementation of a Fee and Rebate (or Dividend) system.
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See this excerpt from "NASA Scientist Jim Hansen Takes on 'Big Coal'" by Professor Bruce E. Johansen
Fee and Dividend
Equally adamantly, Hansen believes that cap-and-trade will be useless in the long-run battle against global warming. “The fundamental reason that we do not switch to cleaner energies is that fossil fuels remain the cheapest energy source, as long as they do not have to pay for their costs to society,” Hansen wrote recently. “We already should have been making fossil fuels pay for the damage they cause to human health and the environment. But now that we understand the climate implications of fossil fuel use, and recognizing that it is necessary to move beyond fossil fuels at some point anyhow, it is essential that we put a price on carbon emissions to make that transition occur sooner, in an economically efficient way.”
Hansen favors a direct “carbon fee” applied uniformly to all oil, gas and coal at the source, at the first sale at the mine or port of entry. His plan would then return a share of that fee to people on a monthly basis in the form of electronic deposits in bank accounts or on debit cards. The fee should increase gradually to exert downward pressure on production of greenhouse gases, and be large enough to affect purchasing decisions.
Article URL: www.catloversagainstthebomb.org/globalwarming/big_coal.php
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See also this excerpt from “The White House & Tar Sands” by James Hansen, September 3, 2011:
c. Only workable solution: rising across–the–board flat fee on carbon, collected from fossil companies at point where fossil fuel enters domestic market (domestic mine or port of entry).
d. Larson rate — $10/ton of CO2/year — at year 10 yields 30% reduction in US emissions.
e. 30% of US emissions is ~ 13 Keystone XL pipelines!!!
By year 10 the Larson fee is equivalent to $1/gallon of gasoline. The public will not allow this to happen unless 100% of the collected fee is distributed to the public, which could be done electronically to bank accounts or debit cards. By year 10 the fee collected from fossil fuel companies would be over $500 billion per year, providing $2–3,000 per legal adult resident of the country.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/03-2
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My Comment:
The United States needs to implement a Cap, Fee and Rebate or simply a Fee and Rebate system in order to further engage the market in developing green alternatives by raising the price of fossil carbon products, thereby making green alternatives even more competitive.
The idea is to raise the price of fossil carbon products in a way that does not contribute to an increase in the profits of the companies that produce these products through a fee on fossil carbon at the point of importation or extraction, which is then returned to the public as a rebate. Fossil fuel corporations, particularly oil and gas corporations, are enormously profitable already.
The fee is returned to the public in order to buffer people from the impact of rising fossil carbon product prices and to enable them to purchase alternative lower cost non-fossil carbon based products as those alternative products are brought to market and / or simply to reduce their consumption of fossil carbon based products through conservation, efficiency improvements, and lifestyle changes (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle).
Given a consumer driven economy and great disparities in wealth between the rich and both the poor and the disappearing middle class, anything that transfers money into the hands of people who really need it, is more likely to stimulate the economy in healthy ways, than if that money is left in the hands of the rich and powerful, who clearly have more money and power than they need, and are primarily interested in investing that money where they can make the most profit regardless of the consequences to the environment or the economy.
Large U.S. based corporations have essentially been sitting on about 2 trillion dollars in cash for at least a year and a half now, the best I can tell, and maybe longer; rather than investing that money in the real economy in ways that might produce jobs and re-build the U.S. economy.
Simply waiting for the private sector to create jobs and significant green alternatives to wasteful fossil fuel consumption is a losing proposition.
moonpie ask this question in another thread.
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Posted by moonpie
Sep 4 2011 - 6:31pm.
So, what's the plan when Obama signs-off on this bad boy and construction begins?
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Posted by PuffinThrush
Sep 8 2011 - 9:51am.
moonpie previously wrote:
They'll be plenty of time to deal and monkey wrench with this pipeline and plenty of bulldozers to actually "put your bodies on the line" in front of later.
Comment posted by moonpie under the article "I Will Be Sitting in Front of the White House" by Carol Smith.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/22-10
* * * * *
My Reply:
More civil disobedience, at least?
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Posted by PuffinThrush
Sep 8 2011 - 3:02pm.
Excerpt from “Climate Disobedience: Is a New 'Seattle' in the Making?” by Mark Engler, TomDispatch.com, August 12, 2009:
In fact, arrests are piling up quicker than journalists can coin name-and-number nicknames. The Coal Swarm website keeps track of an ever-lengthening list of protests. New headlines now appear weekly:
"Activists scale 20-story dragline at mountaintop removal site in Twilight, WV"
"14 Arrested at TVA headquarters in Knoxville, TN"
"10 activists board coal ship in Kent, England"
"Activists shut down Collie Power Station, Western Australia"
In August 2007, Al Gore, Nobel-prize-winning author of An Inconvenient Truth, told Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants." By the time Gore made that statement, some young people had already started blocking bulldozers, and many more, young and old, would soon follow.
Still, Gore can be excused for feeling that such measures were overdue. With global warming, perhaps more than any other issue, there is a disjuncture between a widespread acknowledgment of the gravity of the situation we face and a social willingness to respond in any proportionate way.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/12
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My Comment:
We probably cannot expect any civil disobedience from Al Gore, of course.
After all, Al Gore didn't show up at the White House with so many others to protest TransCanada's Keystone.XL oil sands pipeline this past week.
* * * * *
Re-posted from "A Mother's Plea for Sasha and Malia: No Tar Sands Pipeline
by Daphne Wysham"
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/04-0
Throwing Shoes. Obama is a Dog.
Well, Bill McKibben says that Tar Sands Action is "still planning something big for October 7th or 8th – the 7th is the date of the last State Department hearing in Washington, DC."
See "McKibben: What Comes Next for Tar Sands Action" at Letter URL: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/07/313522/mckibben-what-comes-next-for-tar-sands-action/ or comments in this thread.
But October 6th is the beginning of the protest against the ongoing occupation and war in Afghanistan in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.
Website URL: http://october2011.org/
The opportunity was missed during Barack Obama's bus tour, but maybe Code Pink or some other group could "ramp it up" in support of the protest in Freedom Plaza by calling Barack Obama a dog and throwing pairs of pink tennis shoes over the White House fence in honor of Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who did the same thing when George W. Bush was (last?) in Baghdad. That should certainly get people arrested, if they are so inclined.
A less agressive approach might be to personally and politely deliver pairs of pink tennis shoes to local Obama campaign headquarters with a note attached saying "Barack Obama you dog. Bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. In honor of Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi we would have throw these shoes at you, if you were here."
See Comment previously posted under "Desperate for Democracy in Iraq" by Julie Hollar, August 3, 2011.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/03-6
* * * * *
Desperate for Democracy in the United States
Calling Code Pink!
- -
Excerpt from “FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight” by John Nichols, August 16, 2011 by The Nation, re-published by Common Dreams:
Obama’s absence from the scene has raised questions about how the man who once promised to march with workers in defense of collective bargaining rights (“If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.”) could remain so distant from the struggles that matter most.
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/16-4
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Excerpt from “Bush 'shoe thrower' claims he was tortured in prison” September 15, 2009:
That chance came at the news conference, when [Muntadhar] al-Zaidi threw both his shoes at Bush and called him a "dog," two of the worst insults in the Middle East. Bush ducked the shoes and was not hurt.
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Excerpt from “Bush 'shoe thrower' claims he was tortured in prison” September 15, 2009:
Muntadhar al-Zaidi said he was beaten with cables and pipes and tortured with electricity immediately after guards removed him from a news conference for hurling both shoes at Bush. He said he was taken into another room and beaten even as the news conference continued.
Article URL: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-09-15/world/iraq.shoe.thrower_1_zaidi-baghdad-jail-sentence?_s=PM:WORLD
* * * * *
My Comment:
Well, a group of people like Code Pink could call attention to Obama's hypocrisy and the similarities between Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bush's pal Dick Cheney by calling Obama a "dog" and throwing pairs of pink tennis shoes at him while he is out on his bus tour instead of out walking in comfortable shoes with protesting or striking union members in Wisconsin or in any other part of the country like he said would
Of course, they might all get electricuted and arrested like Andrew "Don't Tase Me Bro" Meyer or even worse subjected to other types of torture as well like Muntadhar al-Zaidi.
But don't worry, I don't think Obama would get hurt.
Barack Obama is pretty good at ducking the truth and has good reason to be confident that whenever anyone notices his lies (and we do), the mainstreet media will barely notice and the juggernaut of that one billion dollar campaign warchest / hope chest that he is amassing will do the trick.
It's called "free" speech for politicians and wealthy people and corporations, but not for the people.
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University of Florida Taser indicident [featuring Q&A after John Kerry's Constitution Day address, September 17, 2007]
Wikipedia URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident
- -
University of Florida student Tasered at Kerry forum
YouTube URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bVa6jn4rpE
..
Expression Dancing in a Public Memorial
Perhaps this is my favorite form of civil disobedience.
While other folks are protesting in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. starting on October 6th against the occupation and war in Afghanistan or at that State Department on October 7th or 8th if that is what Bill McKibben and Tar Sands Action have in mind, you might what to try getting arrested wearing something overtly political at the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, or the Vietnam War Memorial or some other memorial in Washington, D.C. by committing the egregious offense of expressive dancing.
Heck, if you time it right you might be able to get arrested several times in Washington while protesting continued U.S. occupation and war in Afghanistan, the Keystone XL pipeline, and ridiculous restrictions on freedom of speech.
Hey, this is a come as you are kind of protest. Flash mobs might be a good way to organize this kind of protest at memorials around D.C.
What better way to show your contempt for government policy than provoking the government to engage in absurd forms of repression?
Another variation on expressive dancing at D.C. memorials as a form of civil disobedience might be to perform the Dance of Death.
This is easily done. Someone dressed as the Grim Reaper leads a procession of dancers through a memorial. Each of the dancers could wear a somewhat smaller than torso sized sign front and back identifying a major fossil fuel company such as Exxon Mobil, Massey Coal, TransCanada, BP, etc.
I remember doing the Dance of Death protest in the 1980s with companies that were building parts of the MX missile.
Apparently, during conflict between labor and owners the Wobblies (i.e. International Workers of the World) would sometimes just keep on sending in more people to get arrested.
The following was previously posted under "Ryan's Approach to 71-Year-Old Dissenting Constituent: Tackle, Handcuff, Arrest, Disdain" by Abby Zimet
Article URL: www.commondreams.org/further/2011/09/08-3
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Then of course there are the arrests for civil disobedience aimed at breaking ridiculous rules such as a prohibition on any expressive dancing in a public memorial such as the Jefferson Memorial.
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"Adam Kokesh body slammed, choked, police brutality at Jefferson Memorial"
YouTube URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jUU3yCy3uI
- - - - -
"Park Police Slam Dancers at Jefferson Memorial", May 28, 2011
Article URL www.commondreams.org/further/2011/05/28-0
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Excerpt from "Come Dance with Me (and Thomas Jefferson)", by Medea Benjamin, June 3, 2011
So I naturally felt the same sense of outrage when I heard about the case of Mary Brooke Oberwetter, who was arrested for dancing quietly (with a headset on) at the Jefferson Memorial back in 2008. She sued the Park Police, lost and then appealed. On May 17, 2011 the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against her, saying that that dancing at memorials is forbidden “because it stands out as a type of performance, creating its own center of attention and distracting from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration.” Never mind that Oberwetter was arrested at midnight, when there was nobody but her and her friends around. Never mind that tourists at these memorials are always talking loudly, posing for photos and making all kinds of “distractions.” Never mind that dance can be a way to express joy at the freedoms espoused by our founding fathers.
Article URL www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/03
Stepping up the heat should include non-violent direct action directed at the actual construction, if it gets that far. A mass protest which led to over a hundred arrests took place on Vancouver Island in the late 1990s to stop the clear-cutting logging of first-growth forest in Clayquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Tension was definitely created, and the forest industry was forced to change its logging practices. Of course, impeding the export of bitumen from Alberta to the US threatens the most powerful vested interests. Therefore, efforts must also be made to build a truly mass movement to include environmentalists, First Nations, farmers and workers. The Alberta Tar Sands is the world's largest energy and capital project. A vast region of northern Canada - equivalent in size to the state of Florida - has been decimated and imperiled, a sacrifice zone on a scale similar to the environmental carnage created by mountain-top removal in Kentucky. The Lubicon Cree who live downstream from the refineries have suffered a spate of rare cancers, and their traditional livelihoods are threatened by the air and water pollution from this massive enterprise. Canada's meager attempts at reducing greenhouse gas emissions - by the decommissioning of coal-fired electricity generators in Ontario - have been nullified by the carbon emissions from Alberta. And as James Hansen rightly points, exploiting this resource will make it impossible to stabilize climate change.