For many the mention of Ireland conjures thoughts of W.B. Yeats, lush green grass and dark guiness beer freely flowing in crowded pubs. Who thinks of Ireland being the battleground for a war against the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell being waged by young people, fathers, mothers, grandparents. For over 11 years Irish people have taken action against the destruction of their land and communities by Shell. Yes there is much more in Ireland than pubs and poetry.
There are major health and safety issues with the high pressure raw gas pipeline planned so close to people’s homes – regarding an earlier pipeline route Shell admitted that homes would be put within a kill-zone from heat radiation in the event of a pipe failure. The refinery itself is in the catchment area of the local drinking water supply which would be forbidden in most other European countries.
Where there are profits to be made who gives a damn about tourism, fishing, swimming and the safety of the local residents? Clearly not Shell nor the corrupt politicians who made this deal which offers no benefits to the Irish people at large nor in the communities affected by the pipeline or refinery.
Resistance in Mayo 2008
2009
Solidarity from Australia to Ireland–yes, Australia.
Rolling Stone may finally accomplish what everyone else has failed to do so far: Put the Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline on the radar of millions of unaware Americans. Let the googling for information, for YouTube videos, for environmental sites commence! Am I hoping for way too much? Mayhap. But I’m hoping at the moment.
Kudos to Jeff Goodell for laying all the cards on the table in “Ten Things Obama Must Do. How the president can help slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet without waiting for Congress.”
Hell, we’ll all die from the next black plague epidemic before this Congress does anything for anyone besides the military industrial complex, BIG OIL and a multitude of small-minded self interests of its members. Obama has the power to kill this pipeline all by himself. If he doesn’t then we all will know exactly what he’s made of without any further doubts. Earth can expect no help from the United States Government at large. The simple fact that we all have only one planet to live on and hence we need clean air, water and soil to survive seems to be beyond the grasp of the people in government. Or–maybe they just don’t care? Could be. I’ll buy that too. BUT that does not mean that WE, you and I, should not care. It means we need to care more. It means we will have to take more responsibility for the welfare of this wonderful planet. It means we will have to lead the way by thought, word and action. People like Tim DeChristopher are blazing some trails. More cheers for Goodell for making a pardon for Tim DeChristopher number nine on his Obama hit list. Bidder 70 ought to be on American radar full beam ahead ever since his imprisonment for a two-year sentence for disrupting that ILLEGAL land auction set up by Bushies for their oil and gas cronies’ benefit. Why can’t ordinary Americans BUY the lands we want to save from developers? Don’t we have as much right to purchase for protection as developers have rights to purchase for destruction and environmental devastation that affects everyone? Let’s level the playing field here already between Big OIL and the millions of US. DeChristopher raised the funds to pay for the lands he won in bidding. He was willing to pay for the land in order to save it. Now the government figures he’ll pay with time in prison for doing the truly right thing. Whose priorities are skewed here? Guess what I’m thinking. What does this reveal? The Government FEARS Tim DeChristopher. They have advocated preventive medicine to keep others from engaging in Civil Disobedience by tossing DeChristopher into the pokey. (Novel, isn’t it that they can implement preventive measures for political purposes but have trouble with preventive healthcare concepts–only in America, the rest of the developed world gets this notion quite well.) You know what this means, don’t you? Come on, you know, right? Their FEAR reveals how much power we really have. Even though we are not yet using it effectively–we clearly have enough innate power that the powers that be FEAR massive engagement in Civil Disobedience. WOW! Judge Benson further empowered Tim DeChristopher the moment he had him hauled off to prison in order to silence him and dissuade others from following his example. Damn, there must be some folks biting their nails to the quick as they read Goodell’s article. Millions of readers who may not have heard of DeChristopher will learn of him via a high-profile magazine. THANK YOU, ROLLING STONE for yanking the cat out of the out of sight, out of mind bag and into the mainstream mindstream at large.
Obama and pals may pay no head to Goodell’s list in the same way they seem to have ignored the two weeks of protest, 1,252 arrests, the 600,000 phone calls. They may snicker and sneer at it—and us. The pipeline may be approved. Construction may go forth. What happens then will be up to US. All of us. Will we let them destroy our life support system? Or will we take action to save it?
Oh yeah, yet another Keystone Pipeline Protest Post from yours truly. It’s going to be a long week of such posts as I wade the web for coverage of what’s going in front of the White House. Daryl Hannah got arrested at the protest. Thank you, Ms. Hannah. Where’s that Al Gore and his “truth” crew? Gore has the funds to travel everywhere so that’s not an issue. Holding out for the big finish or just holding out, Mr. Gore?
Oh and somewhere along the way I learned that Obama still has NOT put solar panels on the White House roof. LOL. What does that tell Us? Hmm?
Can you imagine destroying 740,000 acres of forest for a pipeline to carry “crude” from Alberta, Canada to Texas refineries? Is there no end to the insanity? People go to jail for starting forest fires. Why don’t oil company executives go to jail for destroying forests?
Yes, you read that right: 522 people, so far, have been arrested at the White House for protesting the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline. 140 were arrested on Monday, August 29, 2011.
Where is the “hope”? Where is the “change”? In US and only US. How much longer are we going to wallow in our addiction to gasoline?
To view the PBS video about the Tar Sands please visit the Tar Sands Action site http://www.tarsandsaction.org/
This is the story NOT being covered by any corporate News station in America: Two weeks of protests in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. of an alliance of environmental, Indigenous, and concerned AMERICANS to protest the building of the Keystone Pipeline all across America. Native people have been fighting the pipeline in Canada ever since it began. Now the media ignores the ongoing protests and arrests in order to keep other people from learning about the Keystone Pipeline and joining the fray. So–Spread the News! We can’t all be in DC. But we can all share the responsibility and show solidarity by NOT BEING SILENT. USE the tools at your fingertips and SPEAK out for the Earth Today! Or there may not be any pleasant tomorrows for our children.
The other night by pure chance I viewed “Someplace with a Mountain” on my local PBS station KCPT 2. Lately, as in ever since the GOP attack on funding for PBS the station seems to have found some sort of backbone and has been airing programs dealing with environmental issues. Perhaps this schedule was lined up long ago–but the timing is currently rather interesting from my perspective. Now if they start giving air time to Al Jazeera news as they do for the BBC news late at night, then we’ll know for sure that a revolution is at hand in American media. But, for whatever reason, this wonderful and terribly disturbing independent film aired during prime time. Thank you, KCPT, for presenting ”Someplace with a Mountain.” This film is the result of one man’s encounter with some very traditional people living on the Island of Puluwat. The Islanders have a serious problem caused by US. Yes, US, if you’re living in an industrialized country while reading this then you too have contributed to their problem in one form or another. Why? Because it’s the industrialized countries, USA at the top of the list, that are responsible for the pollution that is affecting the lives of the Island people. These people don’t pollute the Earth. Their traditional sustainable lifeways have not created any toxic oil spills. They don’t drive cars. They don’t have money. They don’t destroy their environment for profit like we do. Yes, we do, every one of us by virtue of how we currently LIVE. Our actions have led to rising sea levels which are responsible for the destruction of the atolls on which the Puluwat have lived for thousands of years. Think about that for a moment—people living in the same place for a few thousand years and it’s not a toxic waste dump. What are they doing right and what are we doing wrong? They live in harmony and balance with nature. We do not. We rape the world for everything we think we “need.” Or we allow the people who run oil corporations to do it for us. Or we allow the use of nuclear power and suffer the consequences as are the Japanese–who will share the toxic waste with the entire world in one form or another over time. All because of what we think we require in order to live what we deem is the “good life.” Well is it the good life when your water can be set on fire? When your soil is full of toxic chemicals? When our children are born with diseases due to the food and water consumed by their parents? If we have such a “good” lifestyle, then why are so many people addicted to legal and illegal drugs? If life is so great then why are we waging war around the globe? People talk about escaping to islands with beaches and no stress. Hmm. Gee, why is that? Well consider that such islands with peaceful beaches will be no more because of our greed and how that plays out in environmental ways. Heat the planet, melt the ice, raise the sea levels and the islands are the first to feel the pain of going under water. Bye, bye atolls everywhere. So sorry but since you have no oil or diamonds or anything else that feeds our industrial addictions your islands mean nothing in the Wall Street–World Bank scheme of things. Okay, have I rained on your Earth Day? Well, I’m not apologizing because we’re all past due for accepting responsibility for the way we live and how the way we live affects us, the Earth and other people who don’t live as we do.
See “Someplace with a Mountain” and consider how you’ve helped destroy a people’s home and potentially their culture and them. Yes, they have the hope of relocation thanks to Yap. But that is not a reality yet. The Puluwat have done nothing to you or me. But we have done plenty to them–ignorance is no longer an excuse thanks to Steve Goodall’s film. This is the age of information. We’ve got it at our fingertips. Now how are we going to use it for the future of our survival–and that of the Puluwat Islanders?
The time has come to wage war with our wallets as weapons. Yes folks, the only thing that any political entity in the USA has any respect for is money. The profit margin is the battleground for the unfolding economic-social-political class war. Since money is what has been making the world go round according to the agendas of the corporate elite, then money can stop their greedy worlds from going round. We are going to have to become very well-informed about who owns, manufactures, and sells everything we purchase so that we gain some control of how our money is used. The growing efforts in Wisconsin for waging this sort of wallet warfare may provide everyone with a beginning playbook for what needs to be done in order for us to have a say in how we live and work. This goes beyond voting whenever there is an election. This involves how we live and work and play every day of our lives. Every choice we make with our wallets becomes a vote, a political action. Here in lies a form of great collective power based upon informed choices every day. It will require mindfulness, will power and unity to be effective. Take note, there are more of “us” than there are of “them” aka the rich corporate elite. We have the strength of numbers. Now, the question is, do we have the strength of conviction to act for the long-term? Our actions will impact our children’s lives, the environment, and the state of the rest of the world.
Check out Boycott Scott Walker’s Contributors, complete with lists, on Facebook.
Consider what gasoline you pump into your car, which toilet paper you purchase 52 weeks a year, and where your breakfast, lunch and dinner comes from. Think about all the money you earn and spend–and who gains from it. Yes, America–it’s Wallet War Time.
Channel 3000′s Wisconsin news coverage of the unfolding Wisconsin Waller War –>
In a very real sense Bidder 70, Tim DeChristopher, has been found guilty of a lack of premeditation in regard to his effort to save public lands in Utah from gas and oil company exploitation via illegal land sales. Yes, illegal even according to Interior Secretary Salazar. Having watched way too much crime drama on the idiot box, I find it strange that a judge would not allow DeChristophers’s MOTIVE for his actions be part of his defense. What was Tim DeChristopher’s motive? To save public lands from illegal land sales to gas and oil companies. Huh, and that’s a ‘bad’ thing? It’s a motive the judge clearly didn’t want spread about in the media. Such a motive might give people ideas, raise some serious questions, and might incite a huge public uproar? If you haven’t heard of Bidder 70, ask yourself why not? Seriously–ask why information about Tim DeChristopher’s spontaneous action in 2008 has not reached your over stimulated eyes and ears. Believe me, Obama and friends are very well aware of DeChristopher and his rescue of public land from the shady fun and games of the Bush playbook. Why isn’t all of America debating the issues that Bidder 70′s Trial raise? Why aren’t we all talking about a young man who has NO regrets for doing what he did and is willing to pay the legal price because he knows he did what needed to be done? Why aren’t we all questioning how our public lands are under threat by companies which are responsible for the destruction of our environment–the very environment that supports our ability to LIVE? Guess what America, it’s illegal to engage in ethical, moral, just action to save the Earth. Would you do what Tim DeChristopher did when he entered that auction and began bidding? Interesting to also note that the judge would NOT allow the fact that DeChristopher actually raised the money to buy the lands he bid on to be part of his legal defence. Yes, Bidder 70 actually was going to play the rules of the game and PAY for the lands he won through bidding at an auction. But the jury was not allowed to know this information. What’s that tell you?
For more about Bidder 70, Tim DeChristoper, his trial and Peaceful Uprising visit:
There’s also coverage of DeChristopher on www.democracynow.org -Wed. March 9 broadcast. Democracy Now! has followed Bidder 70 ever since DeChristopher’s action became “news.”
AND
On the ongoing Peaceful Uprising in Mad-City–there’s a “rumor” that Dennis Kucinich will speak at the rally on Saturday. I suspect this rumor is true.
Btw, it’s also tractor rally time in Madison this Saturday as the Farmers protest the “Repair” bill’s cutting consequences for their Badger Care.
It’s been another bi-polar fair weather day in Missouri. Cold front on the way to shove the springy warm sunnyshine on its way. Logged online this evening just in time to catch the breaking news that Republican Senators had ordered the arrest of the 14 Democratic Senators who have tossed a monkey wrench large enough and long enough into their nefarious Koch created ”Budge Repair” agenda to raise the alarm among the Serfs of Wisconsin. I actually sat staring at my monitor in disbelief. Wow! What a hell of a story! I turned on my idiot box to see what PBS New Hour had to say on this latest development in the State of Cheese–and lo and behold there was Diane Woodruff repeatedly mouthing Scott Walker’s misinformation regarding the collective bargaining rights of unions being responsible for the state’s budget problems as if it was gospel truth. Woodruff kept slinging the same bs at Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO without getting whatever bs she wanted out of him. Trumka knows the score and kept providing Woodruff with informed intelligent answers containing information the flustered Woodruff clearly was not prepared to hear or reply to as any investigative journalist worth a grain of salt would have. Or perhaps she just really did not want to hear what Trumka had to say? I don’t know which it is–but I was seriously put out by Woodruff’s “insensibility” to the accuracy issues Trumka raised with his answers about public workers being paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. Oh and Richard Trumka made a point that ALL reporters seem to have forgotten–Public Employees PAY TAXES! Who’d have thunk that based on the news coverage of the ilk of FOX News. (Just gotta love FOX’s palm trees in Madison video.) Yes, indeed, unionized public workers PAY TAXES. They pay a higher tax rate than the KOCH Brothers do. Maybe Woodruff just hadn’t bothered to do any background digging on her own of the ilk done by Travis Smily in his recent interview of Mary Bell who laid it all on the hard line. Ten big points for Travis! Major Kudos to Mary Bell who responded to questions with clear, intelligent, well-informed, articulate answers. No wonder Dictator Scotty Walker hates the teachers in Wisconsin. When Mary Bell talks she makes sense. I’m sure Bell has all the goods on Walker’s fun and games in Milwaukee County that have resulted in LOTS of legal issues and LOTS of legal restitution to workers wrongly fired in that locale. Nothing to be proud of Mr. Walker–no siree. Oh, but you know what–NO mainstream news station has squeaked about Walker’s record in Milwaukee County. They’ve let him tout it –LOL–another GREAT story not being covered. LOL. OH but the downside would be all the sh*t that fan blows all over Rep. Gov. Walker–and we can’t have that, can we in the illusion creating world of corporate dictated media? Way too smelly for the nose of Judy Woodruff–and god forbid ABC’s Diane Swayer should get a whiff of it.
Well–yes, Walker wants those 14 civilly disobedient Democratic Senators hauled back inside the capital building so that he can get his KOCH agenda underway. Koch Industries is losing all sorts of capital gains tax exclusions every day that they haven’t possession of the state’s energy works via their uncontested bids approved by Walker.
Now apparently there is some legal question about the right to actually arrest the 14 Dems. This could work for Walker along the lines of his antics in Milwaukee County–which turned out to be illegal. Who knew?
Straight from Madison, news of the Republican Senate Order for the arrest of the Democratic State Senators foiling Dictator Walker’s Koch Agenda:
I sure hope those AWOL Senators have news media on speed dial for news coverage of WI Police hauling them back to Mad-City. Best bets would be Reuters, AlJazeera English and Democracy Now! because other options have conflicts of interests it seems when it comes to mainstream journalism in America.
The Grand Old Party in Wisconsin is probably sending a dear old dead WI Republican friend of mine screaming in disbelief in his grave. Even before his death he said he couldn’t recognize the current ideology of the GOP. He didn’t know for sure where his own political thinking placed him any longer. He’d been something beyond what would be currently considered a progessive Republican–a mentality that no longer exists within the Republican party from what I can tell. How far beyond? He was a Republican who wanted to work for the ACLU. Wisconsin Republicans have sunk soooo low as to deny Democratic staff access to the copy machines in the capital building. Furthermore, they’ve voted to fine the 14 Democratic Senators taking a stand against their callous efforts to utterly destroy the working class and the educational system throughout the entire state. Yes, it’s going to cost the absent Democrats $100 a day for every day they’re absent without leave. And they’re to pay the “cost” of whatever it takes to bring them “back.” No word on if this applies to any Republicans who don’t show up for “work.” Furthermore, the oh so law minded Republican Gov. Scott “Koch Tool” Walker continues to DEFY a court order to OPEN the capital building to the public–as is the LAW.
No wonder Walker approved the recent appointment of Stephen Fitzgerald to the head of State Police. apparently he senses a need for protection of his ass-ets.
Why do right winging Republicans so hate the working class and so love corporate billionaires? Is doing the bidding of their corporate masters a way to vicariously live the life of the elite rich by association? Professional articles have been written about the psychology of the far right, tea party folks and extreme conservatives. They desire complete authority, control and domination of their peers. They lack empathy. They adhere to “right father” mentality. They have no regard for the consequences of their actions–especially if they do not suffer the consequences. WI Republicans seem to be fitting the profile so far. I think I will peruse those articles further. Never know what else might be discovered. A tool or two perhaps?
Btw, if you’ve been considering placing your bids for Wisconsins energy-works, better do it in writing because the phone is not being answered at the Gov.’s office.
UPDATE: Want to know who had easy access to the capital building? PR Watch says they’re very well heeled –>
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