The day I was slated to picket the White House and risk arrest to block the Keystone XL Pipeline was instead the day I attended the funeral of an amazing woman, Elizabeth Bata, a Holocaust survivor who for 93 years stood tall for what she believed in. So after hunkering down for Hurricane Irene and then hosting my son Ben on his 21st birthday (down from his temporary gig in New Hampshire), I made my way to Washington to lend my voice to the outcry (see this post for the details on the issue). A few thousand protestors were in attendance in Lafayette Park on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend to support the people who were getting arrested for trespassing on the sidewalk bordering the White House. By and large, these were people who had, like me, gone door-to-door to get Obama elected in 2008. But after the president announced last Friday that he would abandon his recent efforts to toughen air-quality standards, these people were frustrated and angry. If Obama disappoints them yet again by approving this pipeline, they'll be sitting in droves --- not under Obama's nose on the sidewalk, but on the sidelines of his re-election campaign. Do I hear a movement afoot to draft Al Gore? (Renewable) Power to the People?And what if the pipeline took a turn and ran through the White House grounds, like this...?Comments are closed.
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