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Diary of a Bitumen Sit-In
By Kenny Bruno, Corporate Ethics
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Sunday high noon, 95 degrees, no shade, and I’m sweating in a black suit over an Obama 08 football jersey in front of the White House. On my right is a genial silver haired fellow who drove from North Dakota with someone from Montana he met on CraigsList. On my right is an earnest middle aged woman who took Amtrak alone up from Georgia. Beyond them are 45 others folks of all ages sitting or standing quietly, wearing Obama buttons and holding signs, waiting to be arrested by a fully armed swat team.
The night before, we were warned that our sit-in against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would land us in jail for at least a night, maybe two. It‘s more than we had planned for, but when someone tries to intimidate you out of something righteous, the stubborn streak comes out.
When the handcuffs come on they are more painful than I expected, and in the paddy wagon we are forced to sit hunched over, the sweat pouring off our faces. We can’t wait to get the cuffs off and start doing time.
But our acceptance of jail time is rewarded by the warden; we pay $100 and are released. Meanwhile, Bill McKibben, Gus Speth and 65 other Saturday arrestees, who expected only the few hours of custody that we received, are still sleeping on a hard metal platform and subsisting on a thin bologna sandwich every 12 hours. As I walk out central booking, my fear is that Bill, Gus and the rest, seeing no one join them in jail, will think we chickened out.
Turns out they got word from the lawyers that the sit-ins have gone on. By Day 4 some 200 people have been arrested, from Nebraska to Massachusetts, Kentucky to New York, from the Redwood Forests to the Gulf Stream Waters.
We’re not doing this because we’re mad at President Obama, but to show him how much we care. Despite the arrests, this is less of an angry protest than a pep rally aimed at pepping up the President.
What does make me angry is that this pipeline is a scam.
It’s a scam because the Keystone XL proponents – Big Oil and Canadian lobbyists - say the huge carbon emissions of tar sands production are being reduced, when actually they’re increasing.
It’s a scam because they say it will benefit US energy security. But the pipeline is designed to fulfill Valero’s ambitions to export diesel, and in any case US oil demand is dropping while domestic supply is strong.
It’s a scam because TransCanada says the pipeline will be safe, when its sister pipeline, Keystone I, has had 12 leaks in just a year of operation.
It’s a scam because Big Oil and Canadian lobbyists wildly exaggerate the jobs it will create, while ignoring the fact that the project could kill jobs by raising gas prices in 15 states.
It’s a scam because while we all agree that we need to get off oil, this project increases dependence on the dirtiest, highest carbon oil of all.
Mr. Obama can bypass the deniers by denying a permit for this scam.
But back to sit-ins. The morning after my arrest, I’m back at the scene of the crime, this time cheering on some new friends who have come in from Nebraska to get arrested. It sounds a little crazy, until you realize that this pipeline would run across their land. Until recently, these folks, like most Americans, had what you might call the “me Tar Sands, you Jane” problem -- they hadn’t even heard of dirty oil from Canada. By now, most Nebraskans know plenty about “The Pipe,” as Keystone XL is called there.
And if President Obama does not stand up to Big Oil now, those practiced Corn Huskers for Clean Water will sit down in front of The Pipe before it can be laid. Next time they’ll be angry.
Tagged with: protest, washington dc, civil disobedience
