524 ChaPter^10
disruption of speeches. Recent initiatives include the formation of the Tar
Sands Blockade campaign to disrupt the construction of the TransCanada
Keystone XL pipeline, an oil pipeline stretching from Alberta, Canada to the
Gulf Coast of Texas. Tar Sands Blockade demonstrators have faced pepper
spray and Tasers from the off-duty police officers that TransCanada have hired
to defend their pipeline project, and have been sued by TransCanada for mil-
lions of dollars in so-called SLAPP lawsuits, suits filed by the company to
harass activists to stop their protests. In the absence of federal direction and
protection, activist groups have formed in an attempt to protect the ecosystem
and the humans living in it. Groups such as Earth First!, MUSE, the Common
Ground Collective, and Rising Tide are just a few examples that demonstrate
the continuation of an environmental movement despite the best efforts of the
federal government and corporations to end environmentalism. As a new
century dawned in 2000, nothing less than the fate of the earth hung in the
balance. Humanity hung by a new “Cross of Iron,” not the threat of global
war but the strong possibility of immense environmental calamity.Reagan, Renewal, Riches and Poverty
As noted Nixon resigned in August 1974, and Gerald Ford became president.
Outside of issuing a pardon to his disgraced predecessor, he was mostly a
caretaker, and was then defeated in the 1976 election by an ex-peanut farmer
and governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. In the past decade or more, Carter has
developed an outstanding reputation, even winning a Nobel Peace Prize, but
his term as president was generally considered a failure, and was often mocked.
Carter had the bad luck to have to deal with the economic fallout from
Vietnam and the oil crisis, and in 1978, saw one of America’s strongest allies,
or clients, the Shah of Iran, overthrown by Muslim fundamentalists [to be cov-
ered later in the chapter]. Making matters worse, the radicals who overthrew
the Shah then seized the U.S. embassy in Iran and took over 50 Americans
hostage. For more than a year, as Carter ran for reelection, the hostage crisis
dominated the news, while the president and the U.S. just looked weak. Worse,
the new Iranian regime, recalling the U.S. role in overthrowing the Iranian
government in 1953 and angry that the Shah was given medical treatment in
the U.S. [he would soon die of cancer], began another oil embargo, creating
another “oil shock.” Iranian oil production, nearly 6 million barrels daily in