11 March 2014

The next and maybe final chapter & 'Cowboy Indian Alliance' Will Ride To D.C. For 'Reject And Protect' Keystone XL Protest & Hundreds of Students Arrested Outside White House at Keystone XL Pipeline Protest 11&4MAR14

THE campaign to stop the keystone xl pipeline is ramping up. Big oil and gas and their corporate allies are using money to buy the loyalty of the Obama administration and the politicians they control in congress to get approval of the project. But 2 million signatures against keystone xl were delivered to the US State Dept last Friday, 7 MAR 14, and on Sunday 2 MAR 14 about 400 protestors were arrested at the White House, adding to the thousands who have been arrested in D.C. alone protesting against kxl. We can not, must not give up! Here is information on the next planned action, this one on 27 APR 14 in D.C. , and an article and pictures on the 2 MAR 14 protest,
Friends,
Last Friday, over 2 million comments against Keystone XL were delivered to the State Department, sending a very clear message that opposition to the pipeline remains strong. Now it's time to prepare our closing argument.
Below is an invitation to an action in Washington DC from the Cowboy Indian Alliance of ranchers, farmers and tribal communities along the pipeline route. The event is called Reject and Protect, and the key day will be April 27th, when we will march with the Alliance from their camp to the White House. It will likely be one of our last chances to send a message to President Obama about Keystone XL.
I can’t imagine a better way to make our closing argument against Keystone XL than standing alongside the pipeline fighters who will be on the front lines should it move forward. Once you've read the letter, click here to RSVP to be there on April 27th for Reject and Protect: act.350.org/signup/rejectandprotect/?source=350
So: mark your calendars for April 27th -- and start making plans to converge in DC. Details are still forthcoming -- for now, sign up to let us know you're interested, and we'll be in close touch in the coming weeks.
Yours,
Duncan

On April 22nd, our alliance of pipeline fighters — ranchers, farmers, tribal communities, and their friends — called the Cowboy Indian Alliance will ride into Washington DC for the next, and perhaps final, chapter in the fight against Keystone XL.
On that day, we will set up camp nearby the White House, lighting our fire and burning our sage, and for 5 days, we will bear proud witness to President Obama’s final decision on Keystone XL, reminding him of the threat this tar sands pipeline poses to our climate, land, water and tribal rights. Throughout those 5 days, we will show the power of our communities with events ranging from prayers at Sec. Kerry's home and an opening ceremony of tribes and ranchers on horseback in front of the White House.
On April 27th, we invite our friends and allies against the pipeline to join us as we conclude our camp and march once more to the White House for our final, unmistakable message to President Obama. Our community of pipeline fighters just sent 2 million comments against the pipeline in just 30 days. We must follow this up with action in the streets on April 27th as we march with tribal leaders and individuals currently living with the risk tar sands to show all the beauty and power we represent. Everyone is needed and everyone is welcome.
With his decision closer than ever, President Obama must know what is truly at stake, and see once more the power of the alliances that have turned Keystone XL into a turning point for our movements, and for our future.
The Cowboy and Indian Alliance brings together tribal communities with ranchers and farmers living along the Keystone XL pipeline proposed route. Farmers and ranchers know the risk first-hand. They work the land every day. Tribes know the risk first-hand. They protect the sacred water, and defend sacred sites of their ancestors every day. They have united out of love and respect for the land and water on which we all depend.
This is not the first time Cowboys and Indians have come together to stop projects that risk our land and water. In the 80s, they came together to protect water and the Black Hills from uranium mining and risky munitions testing. In the American imagination, "cowboys and Indians" are still at odds. However, in reality, opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has brought communities together like few causes in our history. Tribes, farmers and ranchers are all people of the land, who consider it their duty as stewards to conserve the land and protect the water for future generations.
The Alliance asks President Obama a simple question: Is an export pipeline for dirty tar sands worth risking our sacred land and water for the next seven generations?
On June 25, 2013, President Obama said, “Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Anyone with common sense knows the Keystone XL pipeline would exacerbate the climate crisis: an 830,000 barrel per day pipeline filled with tar sands and chemicals like benzene will make it easier for tar sands companies to dig up and burn more of the world’s dirtiest oil than they could with any other feasible alternative.
Our actions next month will show President Obama that we are living up to his call to "be the change we wish to see," and that we stand with him to say no to Big Oil. Together we will make a clear promise that if President Obama goes back on his word and approves the Keystone XL pipeline, he will be met with the fiercest resistance from our Alliance and our allies from all walks of life. Bryan Brewer, President of the Oglala Sioux, speaks for us when he says, "We are ready to fight the pipeline, and our horses are ready.”
Please join us this April to tell President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and protect our land, water, and climate.
-The Cowboy Indian Alliance

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'Cowboy Indian Alliance' Will Ride To D.C. For 'Reject And Protect' Keystone XL Protest

The Huffington Post | by Brianna Elliott

Posted: 03/11/2014 4:22 pm EDT Updated: 03/11/2014 4:59 pm EDT

Another major anti-Keystone XL protest will hit Washington, D.C. in April, and it's bringing together two unlikely allies.
On April 22, the Cowboy Indian Alliance -- a group of of ranchers, farmers and tribal communities living along the proposed route of the Alberta to Nebraska oil pipeline -- is going to ride to Washington, D.C. and set up camp near the White House for their "Reject and Protect" campaign. They'll host anti-Keystone XL events for several days, and will conclude their stay with a march to the White House on April 27. The Alliance has encouraged thousands of activists to participate, and welcomes any allies to join them.
This rally gives a voice to the communities that would be most impacted by Keystone XL, and their message is clear -- to protect land, water and climate now and for future generations. The Keystone XL would cross several rivers and the Ogallala Aquifer, which would put wildlife, public water supplies and croplands in danger if a spill were to occur, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
“Dirty tar sands threaten our climate, and they threaten the health and well-being of the people who live along the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline route," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune in a press release. "For these families, nothing short of their water, land, and their children's safety is at stake.”
The State Department -- which is responsible for approving or rejecting the 800,000 barrel per day pipeline because it crosses an international border -- recently ended a final 30-day public comment period. Activists have mounted increasing pressure on the Obama administration to reject the project, delivering over two million comments on March 7 following a series of mass arrests in front of the White House earlier that week.

Hundreds of Students Arrested Outside White House at Keystone XL Pipeline Protest

March 4, 2014

by John Light

Loudly denouncing the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, about 1,000 people — most of them students — marched from Georgetown to the White House Sunday. Once there, hundreds fastened themselves to the fence outside the White House, while hundreds more stood with them, waiting to be arrested. By the end of the day, roughly 400 had been taken into custody.
Their message for President Obama: Our demographic helped vote you into office, and we oppose the pipeline. Do you stand with your constituents, or do you stand with the fossil fuel industry and its legion of lobbyists?

“The president is the decision-maker. The ball’s in his court. We really have to make it clear to him that it’s his decision — and if he makes that decision, that’s on his shoulders,” said Brian Thompson, who traveled to DC from the University of Vermont.

Bill McKibben of 350.org on Why the White House Wants to Approve Keystone

The protest came within a month of two controversial State Department reports on the TransCanada pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of crude oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast every day. The first report found that regardless of whether the US government allows the pipeline to be constructed, Canada’s tar sands oil will be extracted and burnt, and, thus, the pipeline itself will not significantly hasten climate change. The second report found no conflict of interest in the first, even though the contractor who prepared it had previously done work for TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline.The protest — called “XL Dissent” — was organized by students at a number of colleges with support from environmental and activism groups, including Bill McKibben’s 350.org, the Energy Action Coalition and DC Action Lab. Many of the student groups that traveled to the protest originally formed to encourage their school administrations to divest from fossil fuels, another rallying issue for 350.org.

Aly Johnson-Kurts, left, a Vermont coordinator with 350.org, speaks with other protest organizers as students march toward the White House. (Photo: John Light)

The turnout at the protest surprised even the event’s organizers. “This is way more than we expected at the beginning. It spiraled beyond anything we could have imagined,” said Aly Johnson-Kurts, a Vermont coordinator with 350.org who is taking time off from Smith College. Over 80 colleges from 42 states, from Louisiana to Maine, were represented. A separate, West Coast demonstration — “XL Dissent West” — took place in San Francisco on Monday: About 100 people — mostly students from Bay Area schools — attempted to occupy the State Department building in San Francisco, but guards locked the doors before most of them were able to enter. Nine students managed to get in, and were arrested after occupying the building for about an hour.
“I think the movement has done a really amazing job bringing together activists and environmentalists from all over the country,” said University of Pennsylvania student Emily Belshaw, who marched in DC holding a large, papier mâché Mother Earth designed by Spiral Q puppet theater in Philadelphia. “In the next couple months I’d like to see a continuing bond throughout the country between environmentalists at colleges, bringing youth together.”

University of Pennsylvania student Emily Belshaw holds a papier mâché Earth, designed by Spiral Q puppet theater in Philadelphia, at the Keystone XL pipeline protest. (Photo: John Light)

Belshaw chose not to get arrested, because she needed to accompany the Earth puppet at all times.
The marchers gathered on Georgetown University’s campus and marched from there through a sleepy residential neighborhood, pausing outside Secretary of State John Kerry’s house and then continuing toward the White House through wide commercial avenues, blocking traffic on their way. Once there, students used plastic zip ties to strap themselves to the fence outside the president’s mansion. Others, lacking zip ties, stood with them, leaning against the fence. About 30 students spread out a large, black piece of plastic — an “oil spill” — on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the fence, and lay down in it. Reporters and photographers from an array of media organizations — Politico, Reuters, The Washington Post — jotted notes and snapped photos.
As police gave a series of warnings to clear the area or be arrested, students chanted, urging Obama to reject the pipeline, and sang songs, many of them harkening back to the civil rights movement and other social movements of the previous century — “This Little Light of Mine,” “We Shall Overcome.” After five warnings, police officers and SWAT team members began arresting students.
The mood was, for the most part, genial. “We love you,” students chanted to the officers, who in some cases checked that the students had ID cards before cuffing them. One officer brought a student a jacket, another shook hands with a protestor waiting to be arrested.
But the arrests took four hours, during which time the temperature dropped and it started to sleet — the cusp of the storm that paralyzed DC Monday — as students continued to chant their message for Obama.

Brian Thompson, from University of Vermont, and Sydney Katz, from Hampshire College, at Georgetown University, before marching to the White House. (Photo: John Light)

“I hope Obama will reject the Keystone pipeline, and set a precedent for rejecting fossil fuel infrastructure projects on the basis of climate,” said Johnson-Kurts. “This is our future we’re talking about, and it’s on the line with every fossil fuel project that he approves.”Brian Thompson, from University of Vermont, and Sydney Katz, a student at Hampshire College, wore yellow shirts at the DC action showing a blazing sun and reading, “As the heat rises, so do we!” The two knew each other from growing up in Oakland, Calif., where months of drought followed recently by days of rain and mudslides may be evidence of the planet’s increasingly extreme climate. “It’s all connected — the drought in California, the flooding in England,” said Thompson. “It’s all part of the big picture.”

John Light writes blog posts and works on multimedia projects for Moyers & Company. Before joining the Moyers team, he worked as a public radio producer. A New Jersey native, John studied history and film at Oberlin College and holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.