“(On Wedneday) Cherri Foytlin, a 40-year-old mother of six, approached the entrance to a pipe yard (in Texas) storing construction materials for the Keystone XL. She swung shut two metal gates, looped thick metal chains around her waist and locked herself to both doors. …In a gesture of solidarity (with the protests here this week), Foytlin tied a banner to the gate that read ‘Defend All Coasts from British Columbia to the Gulf Coast’. …For about an hour and a half Foytlin sat chained on the ground before being arrested. …(This action and the month-long tree blockade) is part of a larger protest around the state that has seen lawsuits, restraining orders and 32 arrests—and that shows no sign of abating.” The fuller Inside Climate News article can be read at http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20121026/texas-keystone-xl-pipeline-protests-civil-disobedience-activism-transcanada-arrests-tree-blockade-cherri-foytlin.
At the ‘no pipelines, no tankers’ protest in Victoria on October 22, Maude Barlow said to more than 3,500 people: “We have to stand in solidarity with struggles in other parts of this country and in other parts of the continent. A special shout out to the people who are sitting in trees, risking arrest, putting their lives on the line in Texas. We’ve been in touch with the people in Texas and they know this is happening today and they’re very excited and they send their love and solidarity from sitting in the trees high above those bulldozers – and they will not come down!”
In early-October, the Council of Canadians signed ‘An Open Letter In Support Of the Tar Sands Blockade’ that says, “Our friends with the Tar Sands Blockade are blocking construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline in the woods of Texas. …For two weeks, they have captured the imagination of the world with a daring tree-sit and bold ground actions near Winnsboro, Texas that have delayed TransCanada’s operations. …If we are determined to prevent the pursuit of extreme energy from destroying our communities, natural systems and climate, then peaceful, yet confrontational, protests like the Tar Sands Blockade are necessary actions for change.” That’s at http://canadians.org/blog/?p=17040.
