thing that makes it newsworthy is that it is not just a marker of something that happened in the past, but an active part of an ongoing set of social movements that are occurring and potentially coalescing right now, around issues of stop and frisk, voting rights, economic justice, racial injustice, gender inequities, and this march might be, just might be, a turning point. does that, the way that the march looms so large in history, the fact that it was a single event in a single focal point in the country, that it happened on a specific time that we all know exactly what happened there, even 50 years later, does that loom, in a way, that sometimes diminishes, makes us feel a diminishment, in terms of anything that can be pulled off now, in terms of anything that can be done as a protest movement now? well, yes. and this is part of what s important to remember. that the march on washington was an event.
it was not a movement. a movement does not happen on a day. it was i spoke with my father and with his twin brother, my uncle. they were 21 years old, here at the march, 50 years ago. and as i talked to them, they said, there s never been another moment like the moment that was the march on washington for them. no other moment where they felt so deeply encased this an african-american community with a seriousness of purpose and a courage that they say is unlike any other courage they ve ever experienced. and yet, it was only a moment. it s part of a very long history that projects back, a. phillip randolph first planning a march on washington, prior to world war ii, during the fdr administration, and, of course, a movement that goes long after the movement of the march on washington. in fact, the civil rights act of 64 and the voting rights act of 65, coming years after the march. so the march is a moment. but the movement is the longer thing. and the fact is, i don t think we coul
and they also did a very smart grassroots organizing through all those states that are in that map, including farmers who didn t want their aquifers damaged. including a republican governor in nebraska who was against the pipeline, even though he was eventually kind of swayed to the other side. but they have done a lot of grassroots organizing through the heartland of this country with very unlikely allays to fight this thing and they have made it really difficult. now when it happens, it s going to impose a political cost. and the white house understands that. in fact, the white house understands it so well, because one of the first things they did was organize against the ofa field chapters. when the newly launched afa started, right, they started showing up and said, what about keystone? and ofa panicked. and in fact, ofa started focusing on climate change and the president s twitter feed started focusing on climate change right around that time. because they had to deflect the pres
imagine soot. which is not actually what we re talking about. and the thing that does, if you could take the carbon dioxide in the air and make it a different color, we would have dealt with the problem by now. right. because it, unlike smog and unlike dirty drinking water and unlike the fire, cuyahoga river catching on fire, iconically outside cleveland, there is no way to see the problem. so pollution conjures things as people can see, and i think that s a really important thing. i feel like, you know, being down in north carolina yesterday and talking to talking about that voting rights fight down there and seeing that voting rights fight being born, essentially, and then thinking about the 50th anniversary march on washington this weekend and the actual anniversary next wednesday, i m thinking a lot about political tactics. totally. and i feel like you have been very smart about figuring out what s politically possible on climate and what s likely to make change more
and i agree that i am in awe of their discipline courage. there s the moral mondays in north carolina, the dream defenders in florida, are the keystone xl folks. the 350.org folks who are getting arrested en masse outside the white house, who have, really this thing was going through. this thing was sailing through. if you read the business journals. if you were inside the trade journals of the people buying stock, everyone s like, of course it s going to happen, and it goes by and it goes by, because they have made it a problem. they have made it a problem for the white house. what has been their most effective tactic in making the white house not do it? because it really is the president s decision. first of all, they picked a decision where the issue couldn t kick it to capitol hill. everything with the climate, he can always say, totally, rightly, plausibly, and truly that the problem are the maniacs up on capitol hill who deny the problem and are flat earthers like the congr