By Grady Hawkins

The Buffalo Common Council Chamber was the scene of a spirited discussion Tuesday, January 18,2011 as those on both sides of the hydraulic fracturing issue clashed. The Common Council will decide on a moratorium for the controversial method of drilling for natural gas will be allowed in the city limits of Buffalo. This decision is mostly symbolic considering there are few places in the city suitable for such drilling. However, the common council’s decision will be seen as setting precedent for the future of fracking.

Horizontal hydraulic fracturing is a technique used in drilling for natural gas. At the end of a conventional vertical well, the drilling turns horizontal for hundreds of yards. Then high pressure water treated with toxic chemicals is injected into the shaft, breaking up the surrounding rock so natural gas can more easily be collected. This happens at depths around 5,000 feet and uses millions of gallons of water, and produces large amounts of toxic waste water.

The potential for contaminating community water systems and the water table can not be denied. This risk combined with the impact of the construction of new roads, pipelines and the fleets of trucks required on communities brings to the question, is this the best approach for economic and energy development?

On the opposite side is the promise of the creation of hundreds of desperately needed jobs and millions of dollars of profits and tax revenue for cash strapped local and state coffers.

By Grady Hawkins

The tragic events in Tucson, Arizona last week have ignited a national bonfire of vanities across our political landscape. Commentators on the left and right are lamenting the hostility between the ideologies, each accusing the other of poisoning the atmosphere.
Indeed, each political opponent drawing a bead on the other, their cross hairs targeting the opposition with accusations of inciting violence. And the ignorant and innocent electorate is aghast, wondering how these violent vendettas came to pass.

The fact is that violence in American politics has always been the norm. The founding fathers knew the quill was mightier than the sword, but the sword could also come in handy.

In the House of Representatives in 1798, Roger Griswold of Connecticut insulted Vermont’s Matthew Lyon’s Revolutionary War credentials. Representative Lyons proved his martial mettle by crossing the floor and spitting in Griswold’s face. Two weeks later, Griswold hit Lyons with a cane, who then grabbed a fire tong and attacked Griswold. The brawl was quickly broken up, but it was just a taste of what was to come.

Perhaps you have become recently aware of the dangers of hydraulic fracturing or fracking as it is more commonly known, or you are a seasoned activist, or somewhere in between the two.
If you are wondering what you can do to help stop this destructive and harmful method of dirty natural gas drilling then please consider the following and act on the suggestions that most speak to your passions, interests and skills.
Please spread this information to all who may be interested!
People power is the real power on this earth and even the wills of kings, politicians and corporations must bend to our demands when we speak in a unified and clear manner!

What you can do now:

* Talk about fracking and your concerns for the potential impacts on human health, the environment and local economies to family, friends, elected officials, coworkers and fellow members of your church, gym or other organizations. Talk in public at the store, barber shop or library to your neighbors and help us create an overwhelming movement to ban fracking and dirty energy production.

* Make copies of the various documentaries about fracking and give out the dvds to all of the above, including your town board members, mayor, state assembly and senators, and your federal congresspeople and senators.

* Send all of the above this link to watch Gasland the film online for free http://thoughtmaybe.com/video/gasland

* Show up (which is 90% of all success) at every fracking related event you can and bring friends because numbers matter. This could include educational events, film showings, legislative and departmental hearings, anti-fracking protests & marches, political rallies, and press conferences.

* Email or call folks and organizations about fracking and forward all the relevant info you receive from us to your contacts, especially when their is a general call of "All Out To Support" an action.

By Grady Hawkins

It’s called a controversial topic, but it shouldn’t be. The fact is that the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, The Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis are luxuries our economy can no longer afford. The officer corps can easily be staffed without these ridiculously expensive private schools.

Of course, anyone who even suggests such an idea generates hostility on all fronts. And of course those people who object are primarily those who should be calling for their closure: the conservative right. After all, they are demanding an end to run away spending, ear marks, entitlements, and expanded government. All this sounds like an academy.

These academies do deliver a first class education to those who attend, and the cadets and midshipmen are first class students. It seems rather counter productive to expend all that time and trouble to get them commissioned, and then send them off to be killed. This is harsh but true. You can be a West Point, tops in your class, well trained and motivated second lieutenant when you rise up and yell “follow me!!” Then some 16 year old illiterate peasant drills you right between the eyes at 200 yards with his M-1 garand rifle left over from WWII.

Taxpayers are spending a lot of money on this front line cannon fodder.

The other night I attended the Gas Land screening and talk with film maker Josh Fox, and Senator Antoine Thompson. The movie shows ecological devastation from the industrial process of hydro-fracking. Some highlights were: death by brain tumors, complete ecocide of streams, hair loss of animals (cats, horses) from the water, lighting tap water on fire, nose bleeds from methane leaks, unsafe levels of benzene, nitrogen oxides, and tourelene in the air and water, violent explosions in all aspects of the drilling and extraction process, vomiting, headaches, stomachaches, unexplainable serious illness, indiscriminate dumping into our limited water ways of a cocktail of 596+ chemicals, deregulation of the industry by the government, a Senate hearing in which industry representatives denied all adverse effects, skillful double talk by the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania and finally the acknowledgement of the benefits for the few on top of the multi billion dollar gas industry.
The movie showed the interlocked web of the government, “expert scientists”, regulatory agencies, and the oil and gas industry. It told the story of Vice President Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton, who started the energy task force. This energy task force met with industry over 40 times and environmental groups only once. Lobbyists of this task force and the oil and gas industry, paid over one hundred million dollars to government officials to pass the “Halliburton Loop hole” in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. The Halliburton Loop hole exclusively exempts oil and gas companies from the standards of the clean air and safe drinking water acts. This loop hole allows known carcinogens to be dumped directly into or adjacent to fresh water aquifers. This is just one of the ways that the Energy Policy Act sets up the oil and gas industry to make billions of profit with no liability to any one.

By Grady Hawkins

As the United States military and its mercenary forces blunder into the ninth year of the war in Afghanistan, the ghosts of history continue to haunt them. The specter of billions of dollars lost and thousands of lives wasted in a misguided foreign policy tragedy looms large indeed. As much as policy experts refuse to admit, the failure in Viet Nam so far in the distant past has resurrected here in the present. The parallels are undeniable, and the results likely the same.

Before the Americans, both the British Lion and the Russian Bear were routed by a rag-tag guerilla army that saw them beaten and humiliated. The Russians had the tanks, helicopter gunships, artillery and troops. They installed their own puppet government in Kabul as well. After 15,000 of their men were killed and thousands wounded, they pulled out, the army bitter and betrayed. The Soviets learned that Afghanistan is where empires go to die.

The United States followed them, seeking vengeance and victory, confidant it could succeed where the Russians failed. They stage was set for new American actors in the Great Game.

http://www.counterpunch.org/

December 23, 2010

Why Indefinite Detention By Executive Order Should Scare the Hell Out of People

Obama's Liberty Problem
By BILL QUIGLEY and VINCE WARREN

The right to liberty is one of the foundation rights of a free people [sic]. The idea that any US President can bypass Congress and bypass the Courts by issuing an Executive Order setting up a new legal system for indefinite detention of people should rightfully scare the hell out of the American people.

Advisors in the Obama administration have floated the idea of creating a special new legal system to indefinitely detain people by Executive Order.

Why? To do something with the people wrongfully imprisoned in Guantanamo. Why not follow the law and try them? The government knows it will not be able to win prosecutions against them because they were tortured by the US.

Guantanamo is coming up on its ninth anniversary – a horrifying stain on the character of the US commitment to justice. President Obama knows well that Guantanamo is the most powerful recruitment tool for those challenging the US. Unfortunately, this proposal for indefinite detention will prolong the corrosive effects of the illegal and immoral detentions at Guantanamo rightly condemned world-wide.

The practical, logical, constitutional and human rights problems with the proposal are uncountable.

Our system provides a simple answer developed over hundreds of years – try them or release them. Any other stop gap measure like the one proposed merely pushes the problem back down the road and back into the courts again. While it may appear to be a popular political response, the public will soon enough see this for what it is – an unconstitutional usurping of power by the Executive branch and a clear and present danger to all Americans.

By Grady Hawkins

The hydraulic fracturing controversy reached its next but not final chapter late Saturday afternoon; at least for the administration of Governor David Patterson. After being besieged by armies of lobbyists, activists, farmers, scientists, and business people of every stripe, the governor deftly side-stepped the issue and passed the gas to Andrew Cuomo.

He vetoed legislation A11443-B which would have placed a moratorium on all natural gas exploration until May 15th of next year. He then issued an executive order that restricts horizontal drilling and fracking until July 2011.

Vertical drilling is not affected. Nor the jobs or revenue connected with these operations. So the gas industry is somewhat placated. As noted, horizontal drilling is stopped until next July, therefore appeasing environmentalists opposed.

By Grady Hawkins

Dozens of environmentalist and concerned citizens braved temperatures in the teens Thursday afternoon to demonstrate against the controversial drilling technology known as
Hydraulic fracturing. Lafayette square was the scene and national Fuel Gas Company was the focus of attention at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon as downtown commuters began heading home.

There is much at stake: thousands of jobs, and millions of dollars in desperately needed revenue for cash-strapped families and governments across the Empire State. Balanced against this is a price that may be too high to pay. The destruction of thousands of acres of forest and the pollution of pristine water sources and aquifers could be the result. The source of this bonanza is trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, trapped a mile below the surface inside the massive Marcellus Shale. This middle-Devonian formation covers most of Pennsylvania and western New York.

The problem is how to get the gas to the market. Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, is at the center of what is becoming the most volatile issue in years. And the issue is far from being resolved. The New York State legislature has voted for a moratorium on new drilling until May of 2011. As we go to press, Governor Patterson has yet to sign the bill.

The group of protesters is undeterred by the bitter cold and cutting wind. They brandish signs and chant in unison, “no fracking way, no fracking way.” The issue to them is quite simple. Corporate America is once again going to ignore the needs of ordinary people in a relentless pursuit of profit. National Fuel is by far the major player, holding at least 715,000 acres and thousands of drilling rigs. The company stands to gain millions in new
Profits with no thought to potential corporate environmental collateral damage.

By Grady Hawkins

The first shots have been fired in this new digital global war. WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has surrendered to authorities in London, to answer charges of sexual assault. Charges already clouded by accusations of American Intelligence involvement. A cold war resurrected honey trap engineered to ensnare and eliminate an embarrassment. But Mr. Assange is far more than a thorn in the side of empires. He very well could be the focal point in a global power struggle pitting ordinary people against those who rule them. As he fights extradition to Sweden, governments are closing ranks, determined to crush this dissent.

George Orwell‘s wildest dreams pale in comparison to what’s at stake. And what’s at stake could very well affect global interests.

The gauntlet was tossed when WikiLeaks and its reckless band of maniacs leaked a reported 250,000 classified U.S. State Department documents.
Thousands of pages guaranteed to once again fill with rage and righteous indignation the power elite who call the shots in this American empire.