Above: Screenshot of TransCanada presentation of protesters, who they define as terrorists.
I am one peace-loving patriot who is not going to stand for having my integrity impugned by a foreign corporation I never invited into my country in the first place. If you haven’t heard the disgusting news about TransCanada’s collusion with a Federal Bureau of Investigation/Department of Homeland Security Fusion Center, desperately targeting me and other peaceful climate activists as possible candidates for “terrorism” charges, you can read about it here on DeSmog Blog.
Thanks to Nebraska activists filing a Freedom of Information Act request, you can see all the PowerPoint presentations for yourself on Tar Sands Blockade‘s website. It is pathetic to see courageous, nonviolent U.S. citizens being desperately targeted by this transnational corporate thug. Even Daryl Hannah and a Texas great grandmother (who was labeled an “eco-terrorist” by TransCanada for having the temerity to defend her land) are pictured. 59,520 individuals who signed the Keystone XL Pledge of Resistance as of April 24 are also mentioned. How does one even begin to respond to such an outrage?
Imagine my surprise as I scrolled through Part II of TransCanada’s presentation to find a photo of Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ron Seifert and me posing in front of my “rocket trike” during our 2011 Tour of Resistance down the Keystone XL pipeline route. Maybe TransCanada has never seen a recumbent trike before and thought it was a real rocket?
The irony, of course, is it is actually TransCanada and the tar sands industrial complex — blinded by the disease of greed — that are terrorizing life on Earth through their lethal exploitation of Canadian tar sands and the construction of Keystone XL’s 485-mile southern leg in Texas and Oklahoma.
This is a common tactic used by guilty parties: Dishonestly accuse others of what they themselves are actually doing to deflect attention from their own sordid acts. The record will show that members of the Tar Sands Blockade (and Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, which had one of their action camps infiltrated by undercover agents) strictly adhere to a code of nonviolence, even as TransCanada security and local law enforcement officials engage in brutal acts of physical violence against them.
How dare TransCanada try to villainize U.S. citizens for fighting to secure our basic survival rights to clean air, fresh water, safe food, and a habitable planet.
By directing his administration to fast-track the construction of Keystone XL’s southern leg last spring, President Obama clearly emboldened TransCanada to believe they can steamroll the American people, but I have news for them: We’re not easily intimidated. It may have been awhile since we acted like it as a whole, but this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave, and we don’t take kindly to outsiders pushing us around.
Now is the time to end the tar sands industrial complex’s reign of terror against the planet, and to finish the fight against TransCanada’s Keystone XL, before more of our collective future is irrevocably stolen. Please sign our petition demanding that President Obama stop the construction of Keystone XL’s southern leg. If the Obama administration could conjure up a way to fast-track the pipeline’s construction, it should be able to conjure up a way to stop it.
Then join Texas landowner Michael Bishop and other brave souls outside the White House next month as, together, we take a stand for our children, the next seven generations, and all life on Earth. You can find more details at RideForRenewables.com.
Follow Tom Weis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RenewableRider