Dear Mr. President…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
The President is now apparently waffling on the latest attempts to lay a new pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The administration last month announced it would review the pipeline again for additional social and environmental concerns. Those of us opposed were thrilled; the delay of more than a year would likely kill the pipe. If approved, the pipeline very well could be game over for the battle to stem climate change.
Then the John Boehner-led U.S. House decided to tack a pipeline rider to a tax cut extension. This has become a political wedge and word has it that Obama may now try to use pipeline approval to win other short-term economic aid.
Cough*bullshit*cought
I recognize that while writing a letter feels incredibly empowering it’s still almost entirely symbolic. But I write to the president nonetheless. I’d encourage anyone else who cares about this to do the same.
Mr. President:
I was the 1,253rd person arrested protesting outside your house late this summer. That made me the final person to be cited for civil disobedience — officially failure to obey a lawful order — as we called on you to stem our planet’s addiction to dangerous oil and, in particular, dirty crude from the Athabasca tar sands. Our nation’s foremost climatologist James Hansen has called the Keystone XL pipeline “game over” for the battle to slow the tide of climate change.
Note: I’m not just a fringe tree-hugging hippy. I was a legal and political reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, raised in small-town middle America (central Illinois). I covered your campaign in 2008 as well as your efforts on behalf of others in 2006. I voted for you in your presidential run and your senate bid. I’ve followed you since Springfield and the state senate. I pay my taxes.
And I ride just left of center, politically.
Or at least I did. But the condition of our planet has convinced me to shed my neutral observer hat and don the fighting gloves an activist. That’s why I’m in grad school at American University, researching global environmental policy and issues. That’s why I was happily arrested in September for this cause. That’s why I was shouting “Show me what democracy looks like!” outside your house again in November. And that’s why I expect you to keep the promises you made when you were elected.
Sir, we need a fighter today; yes, the country is in dire straits economically, but you know as well as I do that short, myopic time horizons — the ones that set up the false environment-jobs dichotomy — only cause more problems in the future. Compromise is laudable to be sure, but how far will you bend?
You are a man of faith and morals; you and I pray our creator for the safety of those we love. Well, I believe that if we’re truly made in God’s image then we have a duty to look after our brothers and sisters and the lilies of the field as well. I heard you tell the world that we are our brothers’ keepers. Well, sir, addressing the environmental destruction of our planet is part of fulfilling that responsibility. By helping to look after the planet, you help to look after all its inhabitants.
Please, stop thinking about what Boehner or Fox News pundits will say about you tomorrow or next month. Please, stop worrying about a future date with Mitt or Newt or Rick. Please, instead start thinking about what kind of a world Malia and Sasha and (some day) my children will need.
Respectfully but urgently,
Adam Jadhav
Tags: barack obama, climate change, conservation, environmentalism, keystone xl, pipeline, politics, president, tar sands, washington d.c.
This is what Democracy looks like!
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
And then, they were arrested...
Photo by Josh Lopez
See anyone familiar? (Look just above the second eight).
I now have an arrest record. And after two weeks, more than 1,250 people built (or added to) one, too.
There’s more to the tale coming in subsequent posts. But in the meantime, you should read in to find out the serious trouble literally coming down the pipeline.
By the ways, “Show me what Democracy looks like! / This is what Democracy looks like!” is the best call-and-response protest chant out there.
Tags: action, arrest, environmentalism, keystone xl, oil, politics, pollution, protest, tar sands, united states, washington d.c., white house
My hat is bigger than yours…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
It's like a folded, starched napkin
The pageantry, the pomp and the fancy-pants-ness of military ceremonies in India is something to behold. And few places is that more accessible than the daily ritual performed on both sides of the India-Pakistan border at Wagah.
Patriotic citizens and puzzled foreigners pile into bandstands along the road between the two countries. Each nation trots out an honor guard for some drill and maneuvers that could easily be a flash dance or jazzercise routine at your local Y. There’s lots of shouting, huzzahing, high-kicking, grunting, “aggressive marching” (I believe that’s the official term) and even a handshake. Then the border gates are officially closed and the flags of each country are lowered.
But costumes are as priceless as the show. And best of all: the hats.
India’s are above. Pakistan’s involve some kind of a cape (it was difficult to see) which give them a more sinister, desert-marauder appearance.
Tags: border, ceremony, hat, india, military, pakistan, photography, politics, pomp, uniform, wagah
Sometimes I forget this about India…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
At the Wagah border with Pakistan
I love India for her so-called faults as much as anything else. I revel in my adopted country’s chaotic, imprecise, ad hoc, ecumenical, communal, fraternal, bureaucratic, inefficient, relaxed, whimsical, anything goes, nothing goes nature.
I can argue they’re not really faults at all. Yes, India has a load of problems. And, yes, some of them are exacerbated by the above characteristics.
But perhaps these character flaws, these rough edges — that’s what I’ll call them — may very well be completely, inevitably, undeniably unavoidable when you have 1.2 billion people trying sort out their lives, both individually and as a group.
There are plenty who will say India’s democracy is a sham, that it’s broken, that it’s a hoax, that it needs to go. I’ve said such things in passing and those are certainly arguable, if not truly defensible, viewpoints.
But whatever needs or doesn’t need to happen in India, we must remember she constitutes the biggest experiment in self governance and actualization in the history of sentience. To that alone, I say Jai Hind!
Tags: border, democracy, india, photography, politics, punjab, wagah
Gandhiji’s talisman
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test:
Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away.
— M. K. Gandhi
From a wall in Gandhi Smriti in Delhi, now a museum and the grounds of the leader’s assassination.
Tags: delhi, gandhi, history, india, philosophy, politics, poverty, quote, talisman
Published: Darjeeling hills of tea ready to boil?
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
Face
I spent time in Darjeeling at the end of May reporting a political magazine story on the tension in the Gorkha movement after the leader of a smaller separatist party was killed in daylight near a crowded market. That story was published this month in a Delhi magazine and is available online now. The full-text version is also available here.
The photo above is from a massive political rally in Darjeeling the weekend I was there.
Tags: bimal gurung, darjeeling, gorkha, gorkha janmukti morcha, gorkhaland, india, journalism, madan tamang, photography, politics, published
Jai puppy
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
Gorkha dog
I recently spent a few days in Darjeeling reporting (real, live journalism!) on political tensions surrounding the Gorkhaland movement. A week before I arrived, a minority party leader was assassinated in the street.
The town was still covered in the typical green and white Gorkha colors and other than a good bit of shouting and lots of paramilitary forces, cooler heads prevailed. That story is set to run in July in a magazine.
In the mean time, I give you the above green scarfed dog.
Tags: darjeeling, dog, gorkha, india, photography, politics
