More Breaking News: Josh Fox, “Gasland” Director, Arrested!

OK, some of you are familiar with the independent film, “Gasland,” directed by anti-hydro-fracking activist Josh Fox.  For those of you who aren’t, it’s a scathing expose of the hazards inherent in the Natural Gas Industry’s latest technology “advance,” which involves pumping a high-pressure slurry of chemicals into horizontally branching deep wells for the purpose of fracturing shale formations and holding those fractures open while Natural Gas is extracted.

There’s sooooo  much wrong with this process that I could write volumes on it, but others with the knowledge and numbers have done it before (i.e., “Gasland”  director Fox,) so I’ll get right to the point made in this post’s title:  Joshua Fox was taken away in handcuffs from a House subcommittee hearing on hydraulic fracturing which he was recording (filming,) ostensibly for “lacking the proper credentials” to film the proceedings.  This despite his Herculean efforts to secure those “credentials,” this despite the fact that uncredentialed Congressional staffers  were recording the proceedings on their iphones all around him, this despite the fact that these hearings are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC AND ROUTINELY RECORDED/FILMED, this despite the First Amendment’s prohibition on curtailing freedom of the press.

And this despite the fact that no one has ever  been arrested for “uncredentialed” filming of sub-committee hearings without first causing a significant disruption to those proceedings.

What followed Mr. Fox’s removal, according to witnesses present, was a vicious attack on the EPA by Subcommittee Chair Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) and industry shills who want their viewpoint and only their viewpoint  to reach the American people.

My friends, this is not about jobs, it’s not about “energy independence,” it’s not about National Security, though the Corporate Whores on Capitol Hill will try to sell us that bullshit.  It’s about Corporate Profits in the age of Citizens United.   And an informed populace ought to know that our rural landscapes, our local control over the use of our lands, and the safety of our drinking water  are being compromised for the benefit of the Filthy Fucking Rich.

The Corporate Giants who now own “our” government expect us to ignore this, to take our cultural cues from the M$M, to turn on American Idol and tune out the scourge of environmental devastation and obscene profiteering being visited upon us by multi-national corporate behemoths.

I, on the other hand, expect at least some  of you to sit up and take notice, to not be asleep at the wheel as our Ship of State takes a hard right turn toward the dangerous shoals of corporate profits at the expense of public safety, the health of our children, and the integrity of our efforts to protect our natural world for future generations of both humans and our fellow travelers on this fragile sphere.

Learn everything you can about this very controversial (and I believe very dangerous) practice, and get involved.  See Gasland,  and when it comes out this summer, Gasland II.   Read everything you can find about what’s being done and what’s happening to the people and places where Hydraulic Fracturing is already taking place.

Then call your “elected” representatives in government and let them know where you stand.

It’s not just important – it’s essential to the survival of our children and the world we’ll leave them.