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The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents.

Just hours after riot police armed with tear gas, rubber bullets, and beanbag rounds brutally raided Occupy Oakland and arrested more than 80 demonstrators yesterday, President Obama arrived in the Bay Area for yet another fundraiser. He attended a $7,500 per plate fundraiser at the W Hotel in San Francisco. That’s a real bargain compared to the $38,500 per plate fundraiser he attended in Los Angeles on Monday.

You know things are bad when the people who usually pay the high ticket price would rather be outside holding signs. Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of the Esprit clothing company and one of the most loyal Democratic donors in the country, joined more than 1,000 demonstrators to express opposition to Keystone XL, the $7 billion TransCanada 1700-mile pipeline that would carry dirty tar sands from Alberta, Canada, all the way down to Texas.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, she said, “I don’t even know what he stands for.”

The administration banned the local media from covering yesterday’s event. According to the pool report by the small group of national media in attendance, Obama told donors in San Francisco: “I know times are tough…but change is hard. Change takes time. But change is possible.”

Tell that to the Keystone demonstrators. In August, hundreds of Keystone opponents were arrested for holding a sit-in in front of the White House. They’re planning another major protest in DC on November 6. They’re hoping it will be even bigger than the August action.

The administration is expected to make a decision by the end of the year. The environmentalists I’ve interviewed in the past month say it doesn’t look good.
Washington lawyer and K Street lobbyist Broderick Johnson just joined the administration’s reelection campaign as senior advisor. Bryan Cave, Johnson’s former employer, lists him as lobbying on behalf of TransCanada. According to U.S. House of Representatives records, Johnson lobbied to “support submission of a presidential permit for Keystone XL pipeline” in the final quarter of 2010. Johnson also lobbied on behalf of Comcast during its merger process with NBC.
Keep a close eye on this. If the administration approves the pipeline and environmental groups give him a pass, they lose all credibility. How much more will they take before saying enough is enough? Will they support Obama in 2012 because a Mitt Romney or Herman Cain would be worse? Probably, but they say they won’t for Obama or contribute to his campaign.
While the demonstrators were outside rallying for a number of causes, including Bradley Manning, social security, and healthcare, the President was inside taking photos with donors and adding even more money to his growing campaign chest. On Monday night, he was in Los Angeles rubbing shoulders with movie stars who shelled out $38,500 for dinner.
Whenever I see that number, I can’t help but think about the growing poverty rate. Donors shell out $38,500 for a photo and special access, while 46 million Americans live in poverty. The official poverty line for a family of four is just over $22,000 a year.
More than 17 million women lived in poverty in 2010, including over seven million living in extreme poverty, the highest number in 17 years. What is extreme poverty? For a single woman, it’s less than $6,000 a year.

Overall, President Obama’s reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee has raised $70 million in the third quarter of this year. A lot of that money is coming from Wall Street. According to a Washington Post analysis of campaign contributions, the Obama campaign and the DNC has raised $15.6 million from the financial industry. Mitt Romney has raised $7.5 million. Herman Cain has raised just $129,000.

A top banking executive who raises money for Obama told the Washington Post that reports of disaffection with the President are “exaggerated and overblown.” He went on to say that “it probably helps from a political perspective if he’s not seen as a Wall Street guy.”
Tell that to those involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I’m Rose Aguilar for Uprising.