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Our Country Is Being Fracked by the Merger of Government and Big Business
The Government Is Using Its Police Powers to Protect Fracking
Fracking is polluting water all over the country. A new study published in the journal Ground Water predicts that the highly-toxic fluids used in fracking can migrate to aquifers within a few short years.
The government has officially stated that fracking can cause earthquakes. And see this. Some fracking companies now admit this fact.
And yet a new law passed in Pennsylvania will allow doctors to access information about chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, but will restrict them from sharing that information with their patients. See the writeups by Mother Jones and Truthout.
The director of the Emmy-award winning documentary on fracking – Gasland – was arrested for attempting to film a Congressional hearing on fracking.
Actor Mark Ruffalo was put on terror watch list after he organized showings of Gasland.
The Washington Post reported in March that the FBI is investigating anti-fracking activists as potential terrorists.
The state of Pennsylvania hired an Israeli-American company with extensive military and intelligence ties to put out “terror” alerts. The company – ITRR – describes itself as:
The preeminent Israeli/American security firm providing training, intelligence and education to clients across the globe.
ITRR explains:
The Institute of Terrorism Research and Response’s research and analysis center, known as the Targeted Actionable Monitoring Center (TAM-C), is located in Israel. The Targeted Actionable Monitoring Center is staffed with former law enforcement, military, and intelligence professionals experienced in the production and utilization of intelligence products.
ITRR considered opponents of fracking to be potential terrorists.
Fracking companies are also using military psychological operations techniques to discredit opponents (and see this).
Not Just Fracking … Government Using “National Security” Powers to Protect All Big Business
The above is not unique, but part of a trend of using national security laws to protect big companies (more). As just a few of many examples:
- Investigating factory farming may get one labeled as a terrorist
- The government used national security excuses to prevent reporters and scientists from being able to investigate the BP oil spill. Indeed, the White House pressured scientists to underestimate the size of the spill (and see this and this), and tried to smear scientists who found underwater oil plumes. The government covered up the danger of dispersants
- The government’s response to the outbreak of mad cow disease was simple: it stopped testing for mad cow, and prevented cattle ranchers and meat processors from voluntarily testing their own cows (and see this)
- The government is protecting the nuclear industry by promoting voodoo science about the safety of radiation on human health, and by covering up what’s really going on. Government is simply acting as a cheerleader for the nuclear power companies. Indeed, nuclear power plants would not be built in a free market: without billions in government insurance, subsidies and guarantees, no one would want to build the bloody things
- The government underplayed the huge Tennessee coal ash spill. The former head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy says that the government whitewashed the whole coal ash investigation
- Fraud was one of the main causes of the Depression and of the current financial crisis, but nothing has been done to rein in fraud today. Indeed, the only real action the government is taking in regard to the financial crisis is to help cover up the fraud of the giant banks
- As the ACLU notes, Fusion Centers – a hybrid of military, intelligence agency, police and private corporations set up in centers throughout the country, and run by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security – allow big businesses like Boeing to get access to classified information which gives them an unfair advantage over smaller competitors
- Law enforcement agencies spy on protesters and then share the info – at taxpayer expense – with the giant Wall Street banks
- In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of wrongdoing – the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this)
One of the best definitions of fascism – the one used by Mussolini himself – is the “merger of state and corporate power“.
We’re pretty much there …
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Great point.
George: Do you believe that this is a recent occurrence?
Ralph Nader has been preaching this for 40 years. People used to think he was a crank. Now it appears he was right all along.
Walt D.
Nader has merely pointed out what was true since the founding of the US, if not the beginning of the world.
Eisenhower warned of the Military Industrial Complex.
Research the mining industry, or the reservations.
This nothing new but puzzling why people consider it so.
I hope to meet Nader some day, so that I can tell him that he's my favorite capitalist in the whole world.
Consumer Reports is the finest example of the superiority of the free-market to the nanny-state "safe guards" that exists today, IMO.
I like to use it by way of a thought experiment. I'll ask someone, "Assume you have two contradictory reports concerning the safety of Product X, one from a gov agency stating it is safe, and another from CR stating it is harmful. Which one would you trust?"
Not once, EVER has the answer been not been Consumer Reports.
Why? Because integrity has value, and politics has absolutely no integrity.
I don't usually agree with you, but on this I do. Nader is one of my favorite people on the planet. He took on Goliath and won (at least a few battles, if not the war).
Any chance for a Paul/Nader ticket? one can dream.
when you have to protect a crumbling empire then all roads lead to Rome and its not expansionist play its retrenchment and survival, and only those with connections count, the others are expendable variables of adjustment.
When the meltdown occurs, we will be there...those who are in charge fight to avert the inevitable, all the while preparing to save what is their essential power structure, when the walls crumble and push comes to shove from without. Alaric and Odoacer will then be the bogey men of those within who will use their looming shadow, imaginary or real, to accelerate the aligned state.
But, the USA has a long way to go before this scenario becomes even visible as there is still a lot of strength in the people. Impressive strength and resilience. Who wins the next bout has still to be seen. What is true for USA is the same for first world...its tipping times either Renaissance or more concentration and inevitable decay.
Meanwhile, George will be in a voting booth somewhere, high on whatever flavor of Hopium is being dished out that day.
I never cease to be amazed at the disconnect voters have with the evils they engender. Nope, it's always yet another "double or nothing" bet under the guise of "this time, it will be different."
Here's a clue, George. You cannot delegate rights you do not possess, regardless of the size of the mob that is assembled along with you. All you can do is what any mob does, destroy.
I wish you much failure in your endeavors in the hope that someday, you'll realize the insanity that rules your life.
What we are witnessing is the re-combination of "corporate" & "state" powers.
Prior to the East India Co., the state (crown) was the economic and police power in one.
Hundreds of years later, Facism was the start of the recombination of those basic powers back into the state.