Add three zeroes and a conversation might begin.

Just a fraction of them got arrested.

40,000 showed up. 300 chose to stay put at the White House fence when the police told them to move or get arrested.

Give me a break! So now free speech, right to assemble is met with arrests?
Wow we've hit the gutter!

There have always been proper restrictions on speech and assembly, beyond the ubiquitous "fire in a theater" example. You can assemble in many places, but some are very sensitive due to security issues and threats on the President's family. There are other aspects to, like disobeying a lawful order to disperse, etc. People with more experience protesting and with the law can weigh in with more knowledgeable replies than mine.

Read the article. It describes how they actually protested for quite a while.

The article also indicates that they had to encourage the protesters to take action that would get them arrested.

They could have protested as long as they wanted and not been arrested.

wanted. We knew when we crossed the line that would get us arrested...otherwise we could have protested all day and all night.

The OP is claiming these folks were arrested just for protesting, as a way to smear the President. And that is not what happened.

My issue is with the OP, not the protesters.

There are plenty of protests where no one gets arrested. And, there are protests where people get arrested when they should not have been.

A goal of this protest was to get arrested ... for the OP to complain, as if the President decided to silence these folks, is false.

I'd expect that kind of thing from the right wing. Not so much from the left. Well, actually its kind of common around here these days.

Edited to add:

And yes. The OP is a known member of the ODS crowd on this board, so you're correct.

"They could have protested as long as they wanted and not been arrested."

Horsepucky.

...there are always limits to how long a protest is "allowed."

We're at the stage now where arrests are necessary in order to drive the point home. Civil disobedience has a long tradition in this country (and other countries more democratic than us).

Remember Occupy?

Were the sitting protesters that were sprayed in California arrested. I'm asking because I don't remember. It seem more protesters are arrested today than back in the 60's.

... but it does seem that if you are on the Left, and you protest, then you're getting arrested.

If you are a teabagger, you can show up to a presidential rally with guns and be left alone.

of our "freedom loving-democratic" existence. fast forward to this past decade alone, scores of arrests (not to mention police brutality) during the Vietnam war and the Iraq war, not to mention Occupy and scores of other peaceful demonstrations.

Don't know the numbers, but it's a significant amount of arrests in each event alone.

Not new, but it should be non-existent.

it was for handcuffing themselves to the fence in front of the White House. And for security, the fence is off-limits.

But they knew that they were going to be arrested. They knew that this was a line to cross. Sometimes, you have to do things to get more attention to an issue.....and I would like for there to be twice as many do the same thing next week, then twice that the week after, until it gets the attention that it deserves.

The likelihood of getting arrested at the White House depends on whether your demonstration comes from the left or right, regardless of which party occupies the White House.

If you're from the left and peacefully demonstrating, be prepared to get pepper sprayed and arrested.

If you're from the right and picking up barriers that were put in place to impede your demonstration from reaching the White House gate, well, meh...

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Vets-Plan-Rally-at-World-War-II-Memorial-227574101.html

so he could join a picket, and didn't notice the cops.

It's one that's really ground on me all these years. I don't know what it's like to be president, but I strongly suspect you could have shoes custom-made if you wanted - union-made shoes at that. Of course, if his promise was only hollow words.....

yep.

-p

Did you read it?

Them far more than he hurt them.

And, that your OP is rather weak outrage material.

No one stopped them from protesting.

Again, read the article.

The organizers had to encourage them to take actions that would get them arrested.

So you, by claiming that they were arrested for simply protesting, basically misled those too lazy to actually read the article.

Now, the knee-jerk folks think that President Obama ordered the police to arrest people for simply protesting.

Which did not happen.

And the perpetually disgruntled will eat it up, even though its false.

Micro managing the police.

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not to arrest the protesters who wanted to be arrested?

I marched with OWS and everyone knew that police overreaction is what made that rather small protest explode into a global phenomenon.

From the article you linked to:

over it? Maybe they have, I don't know?

He did say "make me do it" and yet he goes ahead with something as attrocious as this pipeline, even though he campaigned on being an environmentalist.

And he tells the left to stfu through his chief of staff. He doesn't invite anyone from the left to any table yet has secret meetings with big corporations.

That's the point I get from the OP. So will he listen to the protesters? Time will tell but I wouldn't put any money on it.

which is a fight they shouldn't have to fight, considering our guy is in the White House.

Will the tar sands NOT be excavated if the pipeline isn't built? And if the oil is going to be extracted in any case, how will it be transported, and is that a better option?

I mean, the tar sands are being excavated right now, in the absence of the pipeline, right? And transported by rail, right?

which is, can we change how we live on this planet quickly enough to avoid catastrophic environmental feedback tipping points.

We need to be getting OFF fossil fuels as soon as possible. I don't know that not building this pipeline will have any influence on that. In fact, I fairly certain it won't.

Yeah, what could be possibly go wrong...

But I'd rather see 40,000 people demonstrating in FAVOR of clean energy R&D, that will actually make a difference, instead of against a pipeline, which won't. We have a limited amount of political capital to spend here. We need to choose how to spend it WISELY. And this is wasted effort, IMO.

Both could be protested along with 100's of other issues.

It was not a wasted effort. The XL pipeline will be devastating to the environment. When the pip breaks, and it will, it will create a serious disaster. Cleaning up tar sands oil is far more complicated than our standard spills.

That's just reality.

But I am sympathetic to your goals, so good luck.

Since we're screwed even if it doesn't get built, and the oil is likely to get used either way.

that does not also advocate for changing our energy and climate use/abuse. In fact it is a vehicle for expressing the urgency of this matter, as well as being something that directly contributes to the problem.

If it was the actual focus of the movement, I would agree with you. The actual focus of the movement is something like 350.org, and though I don't know them well enough to speak for them, IIRC it's Bill McKibbens' effort to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 ppm (which we have now passed, now they want to reduce it from the 400 or so it is currently at to 350). Keystone XL, in addition to being a substantive issue on its own merit, is one part of their strategy, not their end-game at all.

You can argue that it shouldn't be a piece of that strategy, as can anyone sitting at a keyboard, or that it's too late to fight this issue, personally I don't buy into either of those arguments. Maybe I'm mis-characterizing your position, if so sorry, I just don't feel like this is an issue we can give an inch on, the stakes are too large and there is no urgency from our political leaders that rises to the urgency of the climate situation. We need to raise awareness and get loud and stubborn about it. Our descendents will thank us.

things. True, protesters aren't saying "stop the Keystone XL and burn down everything else." But it doesn't change the fact that most of the prominent climate protests in the US over the past several years have been focused on the Keystone XL, as has a lot of the national environmental focus. We don't have the luxury at this point to spend years with the main focus being whether or not a single pipeline should be expanded. But maybe a lot of it is that there just doesn't seem to be much in the way of a national environmental movement. I can't say I've been particularly impressed by 350.org.

I just used 350.org as an arbitrary example, since they clearly were established with a long-term goal and since they are a major player on this issue.

As bad as things are, there doesn't seem to be much of any kind of national movement, unless your cause isn't going directly against the interests of big money. So there can be movements for social identity politics, there is some resistance from the religious right but for the most part they don't set the news agenda as much as the large corporations do.

But movements to rein in the runaway financial sector, to head off the worst effects of the coming climate change, to distribute income more equally in this country, to feed the poor instead of the military, etc., to find an economic populist Democratic Presidential candidate for 2016, mysteriously get little or no traction.

Why? People are lazy, misguided, movement leaders are ineffective? There's bound to be some truth to that. It's pretty easy to sit here and point the finger at them.

I think it's more a sad commentary on how thoroughly manipulated the national discourse is. Money is not speech, but it does allow the media ownership and management to establish the frame of discussion, and largely determines the issues people are focused on.

There are a number of good groups at the local level, but there doesn't seem to be a great amount of coordination. If someone was to ask me what group to join if they wanted to get involved in activism, I'd probably give them a list of a number of groups (such as DFA, OFA, WFP, maybe even the DSA) that may be active where they are, or they may not be. Then I'd probably tell them to look around Meetup or Facebook for local activists groups which may or may not exist.

To tie it back to Keystone XL - it's good that there's a national environmental effort that's getting attention and can organize large protests. But I'd like to see effort put into a "carbon tax now!" movement, or to press Obama to use more of his executive powers to cut emissions (the effort to press him wage the minimum wage for federal contract workers was pretty successful).

Your post suggests that you believe pipeline opponents are OK with rail shipments. Fail.

The oil is heading for China, the jobs are in Canada, the profits go to stockholders around the world. Why should the US take on this risk?

I'll bet 1000 pretend bucks on it, or a beverage of your choice on me, should the opportunity arise.

That oil is coming one way or another.

More money into Solar. More money into a smart grids designed to take advantage of variable generation power sources (solar, wind). Investment in battery technologies.

THOSE things will make a practical shift away from fossil fuels possible and even desirable. Too many environmentalists think in the short term. This is a long term, strategic problem. As my daugher would say, it requires smarticle particles!

This pipeline is a great place to draw a line in the tar-sands. It would be an excellent signal that we are changing business-as-usual and are serious about fundamentally changing our energy policies to avert climate catastrophe. Humanity is at the crossroads, and we must choose. The pipeline is the wrong choice, seems pretty obvious.

Making changes to accelerate our move away from fossil fuel would be made easier, not more difficult, by rejecting this pipeline. It sets the cultural context, it says we are serious about this and it has to change, a change which has to happen yesterday! It isn't some stash of political coins that gets exhausted by any effort to bring change. It's a social/political context which gets modified towards sane environmental policy by stopping or doing all we can to stop this pipeline. It's literally an investment in our future, not some wasted expense of effort.

I think it's wasted effort that actually HURTS our cause in the long wrong. I will be HAPPY to admit I was wrong should it come to pass. And if it does, and I was wrong, PLEASE link to this thread so I can eat some crow. I'd be delighted to.

Last edited Mon Mar 3, 2014, 02:50 PM - Edit history (1)

that it is wasted effort that will actually hurt our cause in the long run (in case I'm not being clear, I mean your posts in this thread, not the resistance to Keystone XL).

You being right (hypothetically) about the pipeline will be built is somehow you being right about not opposing it? That's some pretzel logic right there. I think you're wrong whether it gets built or not.

I make no prediction about the pipeline's future, I only know that advocating against it, and in so doing, advocating against society's domination by the fossil fuel plutocrats, and advocating for carbon-neutral (or as close to neutral as possible) alternatives, is the correct side of this issue.

There is value in standing against this, through protests, through message board activity, through leading by example changing our own energy profiles, through finding and promoting political candidates who will take this issue on with the urgency that is required, there is value to all of these things that cannot be measured by the outcome of a single metric (whether the pipeline gets built, whether a particular candidate gets elected), it's a much more complex world than that, as I'm sure you know. Sometimes you win the war even while you appear to lose the battles, through your fight you are changing the ground on which the future battles will be fought (sorry I dislike the battle metaphor, easy to fall into when discussing politics, or any interaction between conflicting forces). And sometimes, because you tried, you win.

In our case it is clearly not a political system that has any inclination to self-correct, so leaving the issue to the elites is out of the question. They have demonstrated that they have other priorities, probably because they think their wealth will enable their children to survive well even in a rapidly deteriorating biosphere, and let's face it, many of them are short-term thinking hedonist/narcissist types. If they have any solution up their sleeves, it is likely an intent to kill off most of us (or let poor living conditions, disease and attrition do the culling for them) once automation advances sufficiently to perpetuate an industrial and information society (they will want their gadgets and their comfort) with only a small human workforce. That's very tin-foil, but I actually think it's being discussed somewhere by people that matter, along with alternative strategies like geo-engineering hail-marys. What I don't think such people discuss is making the radical societal and lifestyle changes that will have to happen to sustain humanity at anywhere close to our current population level.

So, I don't think they will care until we make them care. I really don't.

To quote my sister ...

You realize that with the pipeline in place there's vastly LESS incentive to explore alternative energy, right?

will be exported after it is transported across 2000 miles of the US. So we would see some jobs created during the construction of the pipeline, but we would also be subjected to the environmental damage should a break occur and get little benefit from the oil itself. BTW, the pipeline will cross over the Ogallalah acquifer. An oil spill could be devastating.

Wasting capital and resource badgering the current means of keeping the lights on and commerce is not real productive. Fighting to get some of the better alternatives should get most of the effort. Positive wins, negative is destructive.

It is being built over some major aquifers, that supply millions of people with their drinking water.
Tar sands is exactly that. Canada is strip mining road tar, diluting it with corrosive, highly noxious chemicals and sending it through a pipeline, already known to leak. What could go wrong?

And that rail transport not only uses fuel, but is more likely to result in a spill?

Thereby increasing the mining operations and by extension more profit and taxes in Canada and less in this country. To say nothing about the increased pollution and destruction in the area around where the tar sands are being mined.

Transporting the tarsands by any means will be an environmental disaster. But the pipeline will make it possible to mine more of it, faster.

So stopping the pipeline will keep tarsands production from speeding up.

Once that battle is won, we can fight against transporting tarsands by rail, or perhaps against tarsands mining. As climate change becomes more obvious and harder to deny, stopping its causes becomes more politically viable.

They muddy it up. You'll just be called a corporate shill, third way, etc. It is one of those DU issues in which you are to think as you are told and ask no questions! Like the TPP, which is bad, bad, bad, don't ask any questions of whoever tells you it is bad.

The OP, is falsely claiming that the President had the folks arrested for simply trying to hold his feet to the fire.

The only reason anyone on DU is discussing this today is because they got arrested. Which was their goal.

Attacking the President for unfairly arresting them is ridiculous.

Having said that, OPs that attack the President, even if false, do very well around here.

Which is probably why the OP framed it the way he did. Knee-jerk outrage is still outrage. So what if no one reads the article about what actually happened.

I will not accept the argument that their goal was to get arrested, their goal is to stop the pipeline. I'm entirely certain of that, they would happily have left with the pipeline stopped even if they had not been arrested.

I have no quarrel with the President for their arrest, I have quarrel with him for considering (and quite possibly allowing) the construction of this pipeline, a far more serious issue than their arrest.

The knee-jerk outrage is in your imagination, since you are talking about outrage about these people's arrest. The outrage is that we are getting pretty deep into this climate change scenario, and we're taking baby steps, with no urgency from the top, fiddling if you will, while not only Rome but the rest of the planet also burns. And it appears quite possible that this pipeline will be allowed by our President to be built.

I'm aware that he makes some steps in the right direction on this issue, but I've watched the last two U.N Climate Change conferences covered on Democracy Now, hours of it, and it was very clear that this administration is part of the problem rather than part of the solution re climate change. I get no joy in saying that, in fact it makes me very sad, also though it motivates me to not accept neo-liberal corporate leaders who view the world as a race to the top or land as resources for extraction for corporate profits rather than as an interconnected web of life that we have taken to the brink of its ability to self-correct in anything less than a scale of hundreds of thousands of years. We're literally driving a mass extinction event, pedal to the metal, race to the top. That's the real outrage this OP, and the protesters, are speaking to.

I guess one has to get arrested to get noticed these days. Unless you are a TP'er. Then half a dozen gets blanket coverage.

... find space for five articles about the Academy Awards, however.

This is utterly amazing to me.

It's completion will accelerate the tar sands mining causing further destruction of the environment.
All of the 'pro' arguments presuppose the the 'positives' outweight the negatives, and they do not.

The Iraq War Resolution was not just legal, but completely defensible!
Sarah Palin was right!
Keystone XL is a godsend!
We need to go to war with Russia!
Cut all medical aid to Africa, they're just black people!
There's no such thing as white privilege!
Feminazis need to go make me a damn sandwich!
Yay, neonazi political parties are the best!

What the fuck is going on around here?

were arrested - what action did the people take to "make him do it"?

We have had protests that filled the streets of DC - such as the ones against the Iraq war - and we still could not stop that.

Read the article.

The had been allowed to protest and march all day.

The organizers had encouraged the protesters to take action so they'd get arrested. It was their goal.

If they did not get arrested, no press ... no press ... no one comes on DU claiming that they were arrested for simply protesting.

If these were TEA Party folks complaining that Obama had them arrested for just protesting, it would be just as dishonest.

The OP might as well complete the circle and claim that they may have been taken to FEMA camps.

If these folks had actually been arrested for simply protesting, you'd be fine.

If you simply said "300 Keystone protesters arrested at the White House", you'd be fine.

Instead, you dishonestly, and I think intentionally, claim that the President tried to silence people who were simply trying to hold a peaceful protest.

And that's not what happened.

That he failed to intervene when they showed up to make him do it and allowed them to be arrested (read: silenced)?

Help me out here.

When he says "make me do it" and then allows those that show up to protest to be arrested, that's shameful.

Protesters purposely break law to get arrested. President has ZERO obligation to stop them from being arrested.

You break the law? You get arrested. You are being disingenuous at best.

But hey, keep fucking that chicken!

And will he stop the pipeline now that they showed up, and were arrested, to make him do it? Why doesn't he just do it? Why do we have to "make him"?

You seem to be missing the point.

Lying does nothing to advance a cause.

that people still hang onto 60 years later, and which made no sense at the time.

FDR should have said support me on this. So that anyone opposing it in Congress would feel like FDR had so much support for whatever it was, they didn't feel good continuing to oppose.

Truman should have generally kept his mouth shut. His slogans were really stupid. If people vote for the real republican over a conservative Dem in some districts, he's admitting they prefer republicans. The Buck does not stop with him - he could veto or sign but it was not he alone who could decide. Yet people keep quoting his stupid slogans as if they mean something.

if you hire someone to work in your business and then every time you assign him a task which is part of his job description he says, "Make me do it", he wouldn't be working for you for long.

F.A.I.L.
and not even a nice try.

This is of special interest to me, as one of the persons who had her arrests in D.C. expunged under Boos v. Barry.

Zip-tying yourself to the White House fence will get you arrested, every time.

FAIL and a bad faith one, too.

I worked on enough campaigns to know there's a huge difference.

Even among them they would not have the same interests. And We the People are not that stupid.

The crowd rushed from the grass and toward the White House gates, where U.S. Park Police horses and police buses and vans waited at the ready. The crowd pushed toward the sidewalk as protestors took plastic zip ties and secured themselves to the White House fence. Still others stood next to them, holding banners and singing call and response chants.

“Hey, Obama, we don’t want no pipeline drama,” the activists yelled.

if the Pres. would scrap the pipeline. The protesters cannot afford to finance an election campaign so they must remain respectfully in the allotted "free speech zone".

We have to keep on shaming him, and take the penalties. That's how civil disobedience is supposed to go.

But we never give up. And eventually they must.

Horribly frustrating. But the alternatives don't exist yet, short of violent rebellion.

get some geniuses on that right away, k?

Ghandian and King-ian. Shame and shame again. Shame with every arrest. Make the world see the shame. A Democratic president being shamed over an anti-environmental issue. It's a new world.

And shame on those who defend the pipeline here on Democratic Underground.

but then so is the idea of expecting the President to do anything outside his power. When they are campaigning they say these things. But they cannot have more power than the office gives. Taking them literally as if they are running for King/Queen is pretty naive. There are people who think the President runs everything like a benevolent dictator, but they are profoundly ignorant people.

I am not trying to be snarky--I wonder about that a lot. Is there some way a President could expose and disable the right-wing propaganda machine, for example?

there is no way to "disable the right wing propaganda machine." We can win by persuasion but not try to gain the type of power it would take to just silence opponents.

And that would mean disabling it.

Anyone who thinks you can make the president do anything hasn't thought about it long enough.

How many people are trying to make him do multiple things with respect to the same issue?

What leads one person to make a decision can be completely different from what makes another person make a decision. What is more important to you when weighing your options before making a decision? Moral or ethical reasons, life event, money?

It is one of the most nonsensical things anyone could say on the campaign trail. It is as empty as a statement could be. It was also loved by many cheering people.

And if you don't think my mind is feeble, you haven't read the entire thread!

Perhaps he meant that we should DEMAND that he do it - if so, it isn't so ridiculous.

Still, electing him should be enough.

weeks of protests.

Maduro is teh horrble commie leftist dictator.

ODS sure has a way of turning self inflicted wounds into victimization.