Fracking: ACT 13, The Worst Is Coming

Article by Steven Rosenfeld, from Alternet.org

Pennsylvania, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed and where the U.S. coal, oil and nuclear industries began, has adopted what may be the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the country, giving gas companies the right to drill anywhere, overturn local zoning laws, seize private property and muzzle physicians from disclosing specific health impacts from drilling fluids on patients.

The draconian new law, known as Act 13, revises the state’s oil and gas statutes, to allow oil companies to drill for natural gas using the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking, where large volumes of water and toxic chemicals are pumped into vertical wells with lateral bores to shatter the rock and release the hydrocarbons. The law strips rights from communities and individuals while imposing new statewide drilling rules.

Corporate Power vs. Animal Rights

*Cross Posted from Mickey Z at Infoshop News*

“We know we cannot be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them—exploiting animals in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.”

– César Chávez

If anyone requires proof that dark green ethics and radical earth defense are becoming more and more widespread, consider how the all-purpose smear of “terrorist” is being increasingly used by governments and private groups to criminalize eco-dissent.

Mic Check: So, what exactly is a terrorist?

By current standards, you can pack a calf into veal crate or pump food down a goose’s gullet or grind up live male chicks to fertilize your fields—and you’d run no risk of being called a terrorist.

You could also clear-cut forests to make way for doomed livestock or blow off mountain tops in search of coal or pump toxin-filled smoke into the atmosphere and you’d garner virtually no attention at all—let alone be labeled a terrorist.

But if you choose a lifestyle based on compassion and logic or speak out against vivisection or protest use of fur? Well, thanks to the Green Scare, you deserve an orange jumpsuit and a one-way ticket to Gitmo.

Green Scare refers to “the federal government’s expanding prosecution efforts against animal liberation and ecological activists, drawing parallels to the ‘Red Scares’ of the 1910′s and 1950s.”

This term was first known to have appeared in 2002 in the wake of congressional hearings titled “The Threat of Eco-Terrorism” which discussed groups including the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).