Opinion

Op-Ed: Why Keystone is Different

Published

11 years ago

November 12, 2015

By Hunter Cutting, Huffington Post

In the United States the saying goes that politicians often lead from the rear. Our elected “leaders” actually follow the crowd more often than they lead, charting their course with poll numbers rather than principles.

That can be the sign of a healthy democracy where the popular vote matters more than the moneyed interests. However, once in a while a politician steps forward and truly leads, moving the country where it needs to go even though many don’t see it yet. Obama’s rejection of the Keystone pipeline is exactly one of those rare moments.

Obama not only rejected Keystone, he did it in the face of polls saying that a majority of Americans support the pipeline. He did it undaunted by the power of the fossil fuel industry. He did it strongly and loudly. And most importantly he made it clear that the rejection was about saving our climate.

Obama used the moment to deliver perhaps the most important message that any leader can send about climate change: the time to act is now. Most Americans support action on climate change, but they don’t see it as a top priority. Poll after poll shows that Americans see climate change as a distant threat for the future. In poll after poll, Americans rank climate change last among the issues our leaders should tackle now.

But the science and the economics tell a very different story. America, and the world, must make a dramatic course change, and we must begin that correction right now. The path we choose to travel over next 5-15 years will determine our future.

We have to start reducing emissions now, and we must eventually bring them all the way down to zero by mid-century. Carbon pollution doesn’t wash out of the atmosphere; it only builds up. Warming will only get worse over time. We can put out only so much carbon pollution before warming becomes catastrophic. There is no going backward. We have a budget and we’re eating it up fast.

However, at this moment, we’re still at a place where we can easily avoid the worst impacts of climate change. We can make the transition to zero pollution with ordinary effort if we immediately stop investing in fossil fuel infrastructure and instead direct all new investment into renewable energy.

That’s the easy glide path, the path that not only avoids the worst impacts of climate change but also builds our economy. Renewable energy is not only clean; it’s now the cheaper choice going forward. Due to the dramatic transformation of the energy industry over the last 10 years the prices for wind and solar have plummeted through the floor. Clean energy is now competitive, if not outright cheaper, than fossil fuels for most activities.

On the other hand, if we stay on the business as usual course, in just 10-15 years we will have blown through our remaining budget and we will then be faced with only bad options. At that point our choices will be simple.

We could stay the course and face truly cataclysmic impacts of global warming. Or we could desperately attempt to halt most emissions by turning off our fossil fueled energy sources much, much faster than we could possibly replace them with clean energy. And in doing so we would crash dive the global economy.

The fork in the road is clear. From now on, every dollar we spend on new fossil-fuel infrastructure is simply throwing good money after bad.

Even the World Bank has concluded that we have all the pipelines and power plants we need in order to burn through all the fossil fuel we can while staying in our carbon budget. From now on, every pipeline, every export terminal, every gas-fired power plant we start building will have to be shut down before it reaches the end of its useful life.

In contrast, every dollar we invest in wind and solar power means even cheaper energy down the road. Clean energy has pulled even with fossil fuel as the cheapest energy source. And the price of wind and solar will only get even cheaper as investments scale and technology improves because the fuel is always free.

In rejecting Keystone Obama put a bright light on that fork in the road. And he put spotlight on a very clear, bright line: no more investments in fossil-fuel infrastructure. No more throwing good money after bad.

Throwing light where there is darkness is a hallmark of leadership. And in America we are blessed to still have those kinds of leaders.

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.