The president went to Columbus Ohio yesterday, and his campaign manager Jim Messina went to Harvard. Both encountered spirited bands of young (and not-so-young) people asking him to do the right thing on the climate-killing Keystone Pipeline. In fact, a new meme is starting to spread: Yes We Can Stop the Pipeline. I'm not good at embedding pictures, but here's the link to the thinkprogress account from the tireless Brad Johnson: http://thinkprogress.org/...
And as that meme suggests, people are starting to sense there just might be a third way between hating on the president and celebrating him; we might, in a sense, be able to conjure up the spirit of the 2008 campaign (the grassroots effort that was the most inspiring thing about the whole 2008 season). We're going to try and hold him to his words then--to his insistence that "the time has come to end the tyranny of oil."
A first-hand account from John Chandley, who was arrested in DC, gets at the mood of the Harvard encounter. After noting that Messina had told reporters last week that "no one is calling me up yelling" about the campaign, Chandley describes the encounter with a hastily organized group of 40 protesters, five of whom were also arrested at the white House sit-ins:
When Messina’s car arrived and his advance team saw the protestors waiting at the main entrance, they drove Messina around the block and entered through the usually locked gates on the other side of the courtyard. Suspecting this might happen, the protestors quickly moved inside the courtyard just as Messina was slipping in the back gate and entering the courtyard.
When they saw him, the reorganized group yelled and yelled — there’s no doubt Messina heard them this time, barely 40 feet away — as Messina and escorts quickly ducked in yet another side door instead of the obvious main entry to the scheduled speaking room. After Messina went in, the group yelled some more, just outside the room, whose windows were open.
So the next time Mr. Messina talks to reporters about what his previous supporters are telling him, he should reply, “Obama can stop the tar sands! Yes he can!”
Let's hope the president's team understands that there's real resolve--to stop global warming, and to help those who stand up for what's right. If you go to tarsandsaction.org, you can make sure to get the latest updates as they emerge.