Thursday, February 2, 2012
Environment Republicans arrest fracking filmmaker
Posted by Max Brantley on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 6:28 AM
House Republicans had the maker of a film about the dangers of fracking for gas arrested in Washington yesterday for attempting to film a public session of a congressional subcommittee hearing.
Josh Fox ("Gasland") was handcuffed for attempting to further shed light on the meeting. This revealed plenty about gas producers' apologists in the Republican Party. They could have easily waived a rule requiring so-called proper credentials to exercise First Amendment rights in Congress, but took a break to round up votes to be SURE they could shut down Fox.
What do you bet that the gang of gas industry shills that paraded around Arkansas yesterday to oppose a reasonable severance tax on gas taken from Arkansas yukked it up over Fox's arrest?
Perhaps Sen. Jason Rapert, the frackers' champion, will decry the suppression of a free press by his Republican colleagues in Washington.
Comments (12)
Showing 1-12 of 12
"Perhaps Sen. Jason Rapert, the frackers' champion, will decry the suppression of a free press by his Republican colleagues in Washington."
Do. Not. Hold. Your. Breath.
like
dislikeThe truth is hard to suppress. Fracking is not good. Thanks be to those who keep the pressure on,.
Wow it is frack crazy world today.
I just heard a story on NPR where Faulkner County elected officials and Conway Chamber of Commerce folks think that making drilling companies pay any taxes to fix the infrastructure and environment that is getting destroyed in the fracking process will cause the industry to implode.
Does this means that all of the migrant workers from Texas and Oklahoma living in temporary housing may not be here for the 5-10 years that they first thought they would be here? Those are the only jobs I see getting created.
This is a dry county, and you can't even buy a six pack to put into your own body here, but do whatever you want with fracking fluids and tanker trucks!
sylviat, I can't find it now, but I read yesterday about a PA resident in a fracking area who died recently and how his neighbors and family have tested with all sorts of toxic, really bad chemicals in their blood. If I run across it again, I will post it here.
Yet I hear some Democrats are involved in this too and it is not mentioned at all. I know there are Democrats in the gas industry, and support it, and some who actually get some funding from them, but it seems this is a political slant instead of a gas process problematic article. I wish we had more even bias. All political parties are involved, and they are all like diapers and must be changed, and all for the same reason over a short time.
There should be no doors, no locks, no secrecy, no ability whatsoever to exclude, much less censor or arrest citizens who want to witness or document/report on any and all functions of government.
To turn this post into a *those darn republicans* screed again is to have no integrity whatsoever. The entire US bipartisan totalitarian system is now something which would make tyrants from Stalin to Mao to Mussolinni and Goebbels green with envy.
True responsibility for this debacle rightly belongs to the American electorate for emboldening the terrorists.
Absolutely disgusting! One of the few protections the average citizen has against government is a free press.
There are Democrats whoring for the gas industry. But in Washington yesterday, it was a party line Republican effort that got Josh Fox arrested.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/f…
Amy Goodman has Fox on her program today.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/2/gasla…
I think the only time that tea baggers like Rapert are concerned with free speech is when they are the ones doing the speaking.
But the issue is that this hearing was supposed to be a quiet beat down of the EPA because they dared investigate possible contamination. These lawmakers want to sit there and repeat the industry mantra about contamination and then in the next breath derail and deride any investigation into possible contamination.
They want their cake and eat it too and are getting just that. Many of them are heavily invested in the industry that they are supposed to be regulating.
". . . I hear some Democrats are involved in this too and it is not mentioned at all. I know there are Democrats in the gas industry, and support it, and some who actually get some funding from them, but it seems this is a political slant instead of a gas process problematic article. I wish we had more even bias. . . ."
Ken,
Are you afraid Max wouldn't carry any episode of Democratic Party representatives objecting to having cameras in the committee room at subcommittee meeting? It's been my experience that he fairly even-handed at covering press censorship attempts by both parties? Or have you just bought into the big Republican lie, as Goebbels predicted, like our resident trolls?
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
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