Activist, job-seeker debate Keystone XL pipeline (occupiers use sleep out in D.C. to jam hearing!)

[Omaha Steve]

I was reminded just today I am at odds with labor including LiUNA and the state AFL-CIO.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20111008/NEWS01/710089907/1001#activist-job-seeker-debate-pipeline

Published Saturday October 8, 2011

Photo: http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=OW&Date=20111008&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=710089907&Ref=AR&Profile=1215&maxw=490&maxh=275
Activists rally Friday in Washington against the proposed Keystone KL pipeline, which would carry tar sands from Canada through Nebraska's Sand Hills to refineries in the South.

WASHINGTON — Wearing a nose ring and a T-shirt that read "Food not bombs," environmental activist Spiro Voudouris came to the nation's capital Friday to protest a Canadian company's plan to pipe oil from tar sands in western Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast.

Unemployed pipe fitter Ira Orenstein came to the same event because he wants a job.

At a pro-pipeline rally sponsored by the Laborers' International Union of North America, the bearded Voudouris, 26, engaged the 63-year-old Orenstein in earnest debate.

"I want to help the labor unions. The pipeline is not the way, I promise you," Voudouris told Orenstein, who shook his head no.

Snip: Environmental activists, religious groups and young people inspired by the protests against Wall Street plan flocked to Friday's hearing, where they denounced the pipeline as an example of corporate greed and environmental destruction.

Activists conducted a sleep-in Thursday night, allowing dozens of pipeline opponents to move to the front of the line at Friday's hearing, which was attended by more than 800 people.

FULL story at link.

[TheWraith]

1. This whole pipeline thing strikes me as completely the wrong target.

So long as there's a fossil fuel demand, this stuff is going to get used. That's just reality. If the US rejects the pipeline, they'll take the stuff west to Vancouver and ship it to China, or use it domestically for Canada's needs.

The ONLY way to change that fact is to reduce oil use overall.