This afternoon, a group of Columbia students will be protesting at the White House against the signing of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Columbia Democrats in particular have advertised the non-violent protest. Bwog received a tip that there are currently over 500 students chained to the White House fence, including at least 20 Columbia students. Arrest appears to be imminent. All participants were warned prior to the protest that arrest would be a possibility; however, there will be no charges and only a $100 fine. The CU Dems stressed this is “an optional act of civil disobedience.” The protest is reported to be among the largest single-day acts of disobedience at the White House, according to a CU Dems email sent out in regard to the protest.
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19 Comments
@legend honestly protests don’t do anything…… open your fucking eyes you sheep. i wish ppl at this school would actually pay attention the things that are really going on in this world.
@Anonymous False. Only felonies must be reported.
@not true law school apps ask for the “violation of ANY law” that is anything more than a parking ticket.
@anon This is the same level as a parking ticket–an infraction.
@won't the arrest still be on their records? even if its just a fine, you’ll have to answer “yes” to being arrested on grad school, and later, job applications. not a smart idea.
@anon The arrest is an infraction, the lowest possible kind of charge. It’s equivalent to a speeding ticket–as in, this on your record would affect your ability to get a job/get in to grad school the same as ticket (i.e not at all).
@mickey This for a pipeline? How about the untold amounts of murdered innocents via illegal drone campaigns. How about what the federal reserve has been doing for the past 100 years. Retard liberals love focusing on the most asinine issues in comparison to what the real problems are
@Anonymous Yes, there are worse things, but that doesn’t make the pipeline any better for us. That’s like saying safer airplanes are worthless because more people die in car crashes.
@pooper were those “innocents” killed by drones protesting their governments to stop harboring terrorists after 9/11? No they were out in the street partying and cheering death to america.
@Serpent Considering the high proportion of children killed in drone strikes, it is safe to say that many of the protestors were not cheering “death to America”. In fact, most people there could not care about Americans and their problems, because most people are struggling with their own problems and just want to stay alive. They don’t care enough to even think about America, so get over yourself. Even if they did scream that, they still have the right to freedom of expression and therefore are not terrorists for screaming that.
@Anonymous so you’re saying there’s only one issue that people should protest, ever?
there are a variety of interests and issues at all times, and saying that a group of environmentalists shouldn’t protest one (really important) ussue because there are other issues is fucking dumb. “Why worry about obesity when there’s hunger? Why worry about diabetes when there’s cancer?”
furthermore, why aren’t you there protesting drone strikes, if it’s clearly the most important thing in the world to you?
@Blunts in Butler Should just light up a fat one if you’re gonna get arrested anyway.
@Anonymous You idiots chained to the White House fence realize that the electricity to power your smartphones and plug in Priuses has to come from somewhere. This Canadian oil is going to be shipped somewhere. If not into the heartland of
America for our consumption, then it will be piped to the west coast of Canada onto supertankers to China. Might need some of that oil to power the bus or train back to NYC also.
@Wut Before calling people idiots, you may want to do some research yourself. This action is a protest against the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which transports TAR SANDS from Canada to the US underground. While it’s true that energy needs to come from somewhere, tar sands are one of the worst options. It has an extremely low EROI (energy return on investment): the upgrading and processing of the bitumen in tar sands is extremely destructive, and horribly inefficient. Because the deposits in Canada are landlocked, this would seriously impede Canada’s tar sands machinery THROUGH THE US. The protesters are completely cognizant that blocking the pipeline would probably only delay the inevitable, but it would communicate to Obama and the world that the US is not going to play a larger role in the destruction of the environment than it already has. I could go on, but I’ll let you do some research on your own.
@Anonymous Or they’ll ship by rail. Which they’re already doing. And causing a few explosions here and there.
@Idiots Even hard core enviros realize Keystone isn’t a real problem. Ultimate act of stupid tribalism. Read Jonathan Chait’s NYMag articles about what liberals should actually be advocating for- people freaking over the pipeline are fools.
@Alum You are profoundly wrong.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/31/2865821/jonathan-chait-keystone-fight/#
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/20/opinion/steyer-keystone-pipeline/
@solidarity stream it here too http://www.ustream.tv/rootsmedia
@every college student i could live for a week on $100