Ding-Dong, #KXL North is Dead

I've spent years of my life organising against #KeystoneXL

Helping get Occupy Houston​ to oppose it, joining Tar Sands Blockade​, co-founding Houston NOKXL​, fundraising, lobbying, speaking, flyering, getting brutalised while taking direct action against it, networking, connecting with other people across the #GulfSouth who were also dedicated to opposing it & the other terrible, inhumane, & racist policies & culture that let these projects happen. During all of this, people who loved me, activists I'd grown up around, fellow #UUs, & politicos of all stripes told me that my quest was impractical, quixotic, a distraction- that too much money was behind this project, that the #oilandgas fix was in.

We didn't manage to stop TransCanada Corporation​ from building the southern leg of their vile pipeline. #KXL brings #tarsands to #PortArthur & #Houston Texas. Even many of my comrades despaired, and believe me, I felt it as well.

But I had hope, because I knew that we had lost well- we'd cost them far more time & money than they'd ever expected to spend- especially in Texas. I also had faith in groups like NacSTOP - Nacogdoches County Stop Tar sands Oil. Permanently.​ and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Service​ and everyone on the frontlines who can't quit when they don't win because this is their lives. 

Today, some of that hope & faith was validated. The northern leg of #KXL is dead, Albertan tar sands extraction is being strangled by lack of cheap export avenues, & people across the continent have proven that sustained organising and #directaction change the entire landscape of what is politically possible. As a native, multiple generation #Houstonian, I can think of few lessons more needed than the demonstration that the #fossilfuel industry can lose.

On Tuesday, September 25th, I was in Winnsboro, Texas, trying to prevent TransCanada from clear-cutting trees on disputed property while they were facing multiple lawsuits over their horrendously polluting Keystone XL pipeline. Construction had begun to threaten the woods where eight activists were tree-sitting (living in platforms to prevent the trees from being cut), and I was determined to combine my act of protest with action that might assist others in their peaceful civil disobedience. At around 10am, a small group of us discovered a earth-moving machine constructing a bridge directly towards the trees containing our friends. At a run, we approached the machine (which did stop promptly), and attached ourselves to the hydraulic arm at the back with a steel pipe. Things stayed peaceful if tense for hours, even after the arrival of the local police. It wasn’t until around 2pm that things changed, but when they did, it was with sudden brutality. The police and TransCanada’s senior supervisor withdrew to consult, and when they returned, the Wood County Lieutenant told us we were under arrest, that we had to release ourselves or face charges of resisting arrest, and possibly other aggravated charges. When we repeated that this was a peaceful protest, we were informed that they’d been “plenty patient” and would begin to use “pain-compliance”. The police began by wrenching our free arms and wrists, then advanced to using chokeholds. I was choked nearly to unconsciousness by one officer while the other kept my wrist contorted. My left arm was twisted and handcuffed to the machine when they pepper-sprayed the inside of our pipe. When pepper-spraying us proved insufficient, they broke out the taser. The police’s announced plan was to taser us repeatedly for increasing intervals until we detached. I was tased for one second in the left thigh, then for five seconds in the upper left arm. Luckily, I don’t have a heart-condition, but the police never bothered to ask. Deciding I was too “mule-headed” to continue working over, the police moved on to Rain, tasering her once. Rather than have the police continue to dice with our lives, we decided to detach. Throughout our ordeal, Rain & I were able to reassure each other by holding fingers inside our steel-pipe; this human contact sustained us while we had to endure each other being tortured. As soon as we detached, the TransCanada supervisor thanked the Wood County Lieutenant for “a job well done.” The Lieutenant’s reply? “If this happens again we’ll just skip to using pepper spray and tasing in the first 10 minutes.”

Israel- There's Always Room for More Bigotry!

1st:"Days after a group of rabbis urged Safed residents not to rent apartments to Arabs, former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef reiterated a 500-year-old halakhic ruling barring the sale of land in the Land of Israel to non-Jews"

2nd: “'There is no doubt that Tel Aviv residents will rush to Judea and Samaria when their city becomes African,” Yaakov Katz of the National Union Party warned, using the [hard-right's] terms for the West Bank." as rabbis in Bnei Brak issue a similar ruling to the one issued in Tel Aviv prohibiting residents from renting out apartments to African immigrants.

3rd: "Young men have reportedly been roaming in and around Independence Park seeking Arabs to attack, trying to identify them by their accent. Haaretz has learned of two attacks over the past two weeks, and the stabbing of an Arab in July." With the discrimination of lynch mobs everywhere, they've already hospitalised a Chilean tourist by the name of Jose Toledo by mistake.

The Know-Nothings Rampant

Given the on-going Great Recession and the impact a Black Democratic President would predictably have upon certain elements within our nation, it is unsurprising that the Republican base would decide to double down on crazy. Still, of all loony GOP state platforms, influential Iowa seems to have a commanding position in the madhouse races.

Such fun and self-contradicting passages include:

1.18	We oppose the removal, by order of a Court or government agency, of fluids of nourishment from those who are either acutely or terminally ill.

vs. Statement of Principle #9 (emphasis in the original):

The individual works hard for what is his/hers. Therefore, the individual will determine with whom he/she will share it, not the government. No more legal plunder. Legal plunder is defined as using the law to take from one person what belongs to them, and giving it to others to whom it does not belong. It is plunder if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what that citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

politic

Heck of a Job, Larry

From AP's coverage of the debate about moving foot-and-mouth research to the mainland US before Congress:

Not long after the earlier exchange Dingell launched another tirade, facetiously comparing the Homeland Security Department's handling of the Plum Island matter to its well-documented mistakes after Hurricane Katrina.

"You already have a fine record on Katrina and I want to see that you don't have a fine record on foot-and-mouth," Dingell said.

Cohen said the committee would get more information "with honey than with vinegar."

Three things spring to mind:
Great avoidance of bias, AP; the use of "facetiously" here can be totally challenged on multiple grounds (the tone of this exchange doesn't seem light or joking; Homeland Security did screw the pooch with Katrina, badly); what a wonderful way to respond to your Constitutionally mandated overseer who has total right to all your information whether they ask for it with sandpaper or not, let alone honey.