Beware the Rise of the Professional "Activist": Turns out the Color of Political Expediency is Green

Weiser State Forest, between the underground mine fires of Centralia
and the ongoing anthracite mining just over the next mountain.
Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Here's four very good ways to tell that professional "activists" like Karen Feridun of the politically expedient Wanna-Be Big Green Berks Gas Truth (BGT) and Pennsylvanians Against Fracking (PAF) are simply removed from anything authentically grassroots--and are far more interested in keeping their place at the holy table of the Democrat Party by doing what at this point in history can be described as nothing more than misleading, momentum-deflating busy work:

First--here's the robo-letter I got in my email this morning from the entirely fake "Say No to the Atlantic Sunrise" campaign: 

Dear Wendy, 

"Hope you're having a wonderful holiday season! I wanted to take a moment to thank you for speaking out on so many important issues this year. 

I need to ask your help once again. The Atlantic Sunrise pipeline would cut a 178-mile path through eight counties in Pennsylvania. If it's approved, the pipeline will supply gas to the recently-approved Cove Point LNG export facility in Maryland where it would be shipped overseas. While the fight continues to keep plans for Cove Point from going forward, communities up and down the proposed route of the Atlantic Sunrise are working together to stop the pipeline from being built. Our friends at the Clean Air Council have started a petition on their behalf.  

By signing the petition, you're telling the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and our state and federal elected officials to say NO to the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline. Please support our friends fighting to spare their communities and natural resources the permanent scar this pipeline would create. 

Here's the url you can copy and paste into your browser if the link above causes you any problems. http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/51176/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12086 

Thank you so much for your help, as always!
Sincerely,

Karen

How do I know the objective here is PAF's political fortunes and not putting a halt to this pipeline, that BGT and PAF are little more than devices to advance their operative's careers as professional "activists"?

1. Feridun didn't do any work with those of us on the actual ground in Columbia County--indeed, we weren't even contacted--to (a) organize folks on the pipeline ROW, (b) gain access to township supervisors, (c) organize township meeting with residents, (d) orchestrate signatures. Indeed, most of the folks who actually matter here--the ones who'll live with the consequences of this pipeline--won't even see this petition, and even if they did, their wholly on-the-dollar response is going to be "How will this help me?" Answer: it won't. Many of us have been working tirelessly on opposing this pipeline. Feridun neither consulted with us nor bothered herself to learn anything about how ASP is playing out out here in rural Columbia County, PA. She certainly didn't bother to come and see what ASP means to people on our stretch of the ROW. If she had, she have realized that...

2. Petitions are worthless. As a movement, we have completely, entirely, fully exhausted the value of petitions for anything other than getting names to solicit for--more petitions. Moreover, if Feridun had bothered to consult with any of the many real grassroots organizers in Columbia County along ASP's proposed path, she'd know that we are way beyond the value of a petition. We know who is on the right of way. We have the maps. We have been working on all of this for months. And petitions are now just a really great way for the police and the FBI to surveil us even more effectively. 

3. Feridun knows that petitioning to FERC is a complete waste of time energy and momentum. It does sustained damage to this movement to keep up the lie that FERC will do anything other than permit this pipeline. What we must be prepared to do is prevent Williams from building the pipeline after FERC permits it--that is the argument for township ordinances and the commitment to nonviolent but sustained and massive civil disobedience in defense of them. 

4. The letter was sent to me--which means that Feridun didn't even look at the list of email addresses on the petitions list. Had she, she'd have known that I'd draft this excoriating response in defense of my neighbors on this pipeline ROW.

So what is the real motive here? To appropriate the campaign to stop ASP for Feridun's own activist career portfolio? To exploit Stop the Pipeline for political gain?

Not going to happen. 

The folks who do actual work on ASP get to take that credit--and most of these folks are also holding down full-time jobs. Is it to look like PAF/BGT are actually a part of this struggle against the pipeliners? No--also not going to happen. This struggle does not get to become just one more opportunity for the wanna-be Big Greens to take advantage of the very real struggles of the folks who do the real work and suffer the very very real consequences to pad their fake activist resumes.

Not on my watch--and I strongly encourage the good folks at the Clean Air Council to review their alliances.

Indeed, why did we ever think that petitions, letters to our electeds, pleas to our county commissioners, comments to FERC, appeals to DEP, sparsely attended protests on the steps of the Harrisburg Capitol, or chatting with Governor Elect Wolf, were going to stop this nightmare called carbon extraction at any cost--so long as that can be outsourced to 
the public?

Our petitions ARE accessible to the gas industry AND to the police/FBI agents that surveil us.

Letters to our electeds fall on deaf ears.

Pleas to county commissioners and township supervisors are heard only by their lawyers--who say "Do not listen to those who elected you! You'll be sued!"

FERC works for the gas industry.

DEP...works for the gas industry.

And Wolf is as in bed with the gas thugs as his predecessor.

When we win a lawsuit against FERC we are instructing the gas and the pipeline companies about how to make their permit applications airtight on the next round of application.

When we let down our guard on the hope that DEP might be doing its job because we finally get to know about contaminated wells, we forget that DEP does nothing about preventing future contaminated wells.

And then we just keep doing the same things over and over--as if tomorrow's petition, protest, appeal, comment, luncheon 

with Wolf....will make a difference.

It won't.

And while we're dithering, THIS happens:

http://www.nofrackingway.us/…/gas-pipeline-threatens-lando…/

Isn't it time we recognized that for an industry whose counting on making BILLIONS before the boom goes bust--as it will far sooner than BILLIONS can be made--these strategies are less than the tickle of a May Fly?

We must empower our townships one at a time with ordinances that protect their right to self-determination consistent with the rights of all of its members to clean air and water--and then we must be prepared to defend those ordinances with our bodies.

Until we are ready to be water-cannoned like the brave folks of Selma, Alabama;

until we are ready to be arrested like the now 92 people at Watkin's Glen; until we are ready to be pepper-sprayed, hand-cuffed, and jailed for non-violent action in massive numbers, we are not going to turn this around.

The sooner we get clear about this fact, and grow some fortitude, righteousness, and genuine solidarity (as opposed to the "solidarity of political expediency"), the better.

While we're looking for ways to rationalize our cowardice, the planet is burning.

http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/11/normal.html

http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-big-new-greenwash-governor-and.html

http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/11/two-toms-sheep-outfit-and-drill-bit.html

http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/09/selling-out-movement-to-guarantee-seat.html

Wendy Lynne Lee

I "Heart" Wolf: Why IREX Should send Pennsylvanians Against Fracking a Thank You! Card

What's just tremendously sad and tragic about the 11.18.14 Pennsylvanian's Against Fracking fake Harrisburg rally is that it was never and could never have been about a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing or any of its affiliate dirty ventures. 

The fake greens who organized this--Pennsylvanians Pennsylvania Voters Against Fracking, Food and Water Watch, Pennsylvania, Berks Gas Truth, Clean Water Action - Susquehanna Office, know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Governor elect Wolf is not only not going to impose a moratorium, he is going to act for the interests of the companies to whom he is beholden for his re-election in 2018. 

Whatever extraction tax he imposed will institutionalize the industry in the tax base.

And that could be the death sentence for any viable movement to end this nightmare of ecological destruction and the complete trampling of property and community rights i Pennsylvania.

 

Photo, Michael Badges Canning

That these fake greens should act to manipulate the support of people who believe that they have the slightest interest in ending fracking is morally reprehensible--and it must be called out. It drains the life-blood from the most important civil rights movement in the nation--and it trades that momentum for a seat at the table of the party they helped to elect--Wolf's Democrats.

Consider: Why on earth should Tom Wolf spend a minute listening to this call for a moratorium when he KNOWS that whether he grants any such thing or not, these folks will vote for him anyways?

What a boon for the governor elect--he gets to have a great big cake and eat it too--the gas companies who help to fill his campaign coffers AND the vote of an electorate who cares only that he's not the other Tom.

 But here's just one example of why "PA "Heart" Wolf" isn't just a cruel hoax played on unsuspecting anti-fracking activists by fake greenies, but a charlatan's exchange of moral principle for personal advantage:

One of Wolf's campaign donors is W. Kirk Liddell, President and CEO of IREX Contracting Group (President's Letter | IREX CONTRACTING GROUP ). As reported by the Washington Times, Wolf serves on the IREX board of directors (Democrat Tom Wolf reports $2.2M in 2012 income - Washington Times). 

Among a host of other things, IREX "offers a wide range of passive fire protection and radiant heat shielding solutions for the oil & gas and petrochemical industries" through one of its subsidiaries, Advanced Energy Protection (Reflective Metal Insulation, Radiant Heat & Fire Protection Contractor | IREX CONTRACTING GROUP). 

Liddell made a personal donation of $12,000 to Wolf's run for governor, and another $5,000 to Tom Corbett (Campaign Contributions in the Race for Pa. Governor).

Here's a sample of Liddell's environmental convictions from testimony he gave to the National Association of Manufacturers,7.14.2011:

On behalf of the NAM and the millions of men and women working in manufacturing in the United States, I wish to express my support for your efforts to reform the regulatory process and allow manufacturers in this country to do what they do best – make things and create jobs...The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has embarked on a decades- long process to implement the Clean Air Act and its amendments. There is no doubt that our nation has gained enormous benefits from efforts to improve air quality. But the continued ratcheting down of emission limits produces diminishing returns at far higher marginal costs. This means that each new air rule will have a greater impact on job creation than those in the past.
 Costs of pollution abatement are capital intensive. In a time of economic recovery where capital is extremely scarce, every dollar diverted from productive use creates additional pressure to reduce labor costs. When the prices of commodities and other manufacturing inputs are increasing, as they are today, even more pressure builds to squeeze labor costs. In this environment, it is clear that unnecessary or cost-ineffective regulation dampens economic growth and will continue to hold down job creation. For some firms, it will be the final straw that destroys the whole business... That is why it is so shocking that the EPA proposed making an enormously costly Bush Administration rule, the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for Ozone, even more stringent and costly when a reconsideration was not required by law. One study by the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI estimates that the most stringent ozone proposal being considered would result in the loss of 7.3 million jobs by 2020 and add $1 trillion in new regulatory costs per year between 2020 and 2030.
 

Translation: Our profits are more important than your health, and even though ozone is specifically associated with, among other things, asthma, our rights as corporate ventures trump your right to breathe clean air. The testimony only gets worse from here, but what's patently clear is that Liddell is willing to do whatever it takes to insure that IREX--and iuts many affiliates--are subject to as little pesky environmental regulation as possible (http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/image_uploads/Testimony_CMT_07.14.11_Liddell.pdf).

Let's put this all together: 

Wolf sits on the board of a corporation, IREX, whose president W. Kirk Liddell, has worked tirelessly to kill the National Ambient Quality Standard (National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) | Air and Radiation | US EPA). 

Wolf takes money, $12,000 in disclosed campaign contributions,  from Liddell. 

Wolf has made repeatedly clear that he will not support a moratorium on unconventional gas drilling (http://www.timesleader.com/news/local-news-news/50569154/Tom-vs.-Tom:-Where-they-stand-on-the-issues).

Wolf cannot support a severance tax--that will institutionalize the gas industry in the state's tax base and thereby increase pressure against regulation--and support a moratorium and insure additional campaign contributions from his frack-friendly friends, like Liddell.

Wolf will thus support a weak-kneed severance tax that, with a wink and a nod to his frack-friends, will be more than compensated for through lack of enforcement in what's already laughably poor regulation via the Department of Environmental Protection (Pennsylvania Finally Reveals Fracking Has Contaminated Drinking Water Hundreds Of Times | ThinkProgress).

He'll herald the tax revenue as a boon for education and other social programs--and his friends in the unions--including my own, APSCUF (APSCUF Endorses Tom Wolf For Governor) will turn a blind eye to the hypocrisy of a position that trades the necessary conditions of education--access to clean air and water--for the pretense to good policy.

And we'll see more fake rallies that drain valuable time and energy from a movement whose focus on the future has been its clarion call--until now.

The most disturbing thing about rallies like the fake Pennsylvanians Against Fracking event in Harrisburg is not merely that that they provide cover to a governor who is squarely in the pockets of the gas industry, but that they offer him the distinct luxury of getting to appear like he listens when he is in no way required to.

They hold up signs. Wolf gets to feel loved. They go home and get to feel like they "did something." 

And indeed they did: by providing cover to the GAS-Wolf, Pennsylvanians Against Fracking may do more to help entrench the gas industry in Pennsylvania than the industry could ever have hoped in their expensive big glossy commercials. 

IREX should send PAF a thank you card. 

Take-away: PAF and its fake-greenie friends know what they're doing. 

They know they're providing cover to a governor who will do nothing to end the ongoing catastrophe called fracking and will, in fact, act in the industry of the frack pads, the pipelines, the compressor stations, the LNG export. that makes his friends money.

What's worse is that PAF&Co. is willing to sell out you for that spot at the mic, that chance to look like a hero, that invite to the Wolf lunch line.

This kind of mercenary exploitation of a tragedy must be called out because the only thing that can potentially do more damage to Pennsylvanians than a psychopathically profit-driven industry (say, IREX) is the betrayal by those who pretend to speak for us--but who speak only for their own aspirations to fame.

For other relevant essays, please see:

THE WRENCH: The Big New Greenwash Governor and the "Environmentalists" Who Sold Us Out

THE WRENCH: Selling Out a Movement to Guarantee a Seat at the Sacred Table of the Status Quo: Pennsylvanians Against Fracking

THE WRENCH: A Frack-Wolf in a Sheep's Clothing: How Pennsylvania Democrats are Selling out the Future 

The Big New Greenwash Governor and the "Environmentalists" Who Sold Us Out

Despite the fact that I won't be looking to solar panel the Lt. Gov's digs in Harrisburg any time soon, I have to say that the incredibly kind messages and comments I received yesterday in support of a Green Party platform was nothing short of a bright burst of sunshine on a politically bleak day.

Thank you. Thank you Thank you. 

I have much to say about last night's expected victory  for the Democrat Tom Wolf--but perhaps the most important, to me anyways, is this:

However much Corbett was a disaster for Pennsylvanians, for education, for social and economic justice, and for the environment--and he surely was--Tom Wolf portends nothing short of an even greater one.

There are at least two compelling reasons why:

1. While Governor Elect Wolf may indeed restore some funding for education, he will do it by robbing Peter to pay Paul. That is, he'll fund education via dollars soaked in the iniquity of gas money--and he'll do it in a fashion that will insure his re-election:

a) Tax the gas industry just enough to make a show of it. The gas thugs will feign distaste--but in fact they'll get everything they want and more.

b)  The "more" are the pipelines. As these have been the frontline in the struggle for clean air and water, so they shall remain, and the gas thugs know that whatever pittance they are forced to cough up in some sham of an extraction or a severance tax, they'll make up for that handsomely once the gas is flowing through high pressure arteries to the LNG export depots.

c) We can count on Wolf to talk--for a minute or so--about "tight regulation." but this will quickly be eclipsed by his work to restore funding to all the agencies and programs that will require that regulation to be effectively nullified. We need to be very clear about this: regulation will reduce the number of dollars Wolf can skim from the gas thugs via his sham tax. Therefore, the pressure to regulate less--and produce more gas to pump through these pipelines-- will be enormous. We will see a pretense to regulation, a smattering bit of hang-wringing to make it look like he cares. But with his other hand, Governor Wolf will be shaking the oil-stained fingers of the gas thugs who will pad his re-election coffers for 2018. 

2. Even more menacing are the Fake Greenie organizations--PennFuture, Food and Water Watch, Berks Gas Truth, Pennsylvania Voters Against Fracking, Pennsylvanians Against Fracking, The Responsible Drilling Alliance, COGENT, Save the Loyalsock Coalition, who--in the interest of insuring their own seats at the table of a Wolf administration--will work tirelessly to reassure us that the governor is not in the back pockets of the gas industry. 

They're already trying--some seem to really believe that they can move Mr. Wolf to a moratorium. But this is willful blindness of the worst sort--and while it might lure some folks into the complacency of believing that everything's gonna be alright, it is precisely that complacency that we cannot afford. 

Indeed, nothing could more endanger the movement to erect community ordinances that demand the recognition of the right to clean air and water than complacency. So if you are willing to settle for the pretext of "alrightness," Wolf and his faux-green advocates like Cindy Dunn of PennFuture or Sam Bernhardt of Food and Water Watch are your people:

"Cindy Dunn of the environmental group PennFuture says her group plans to hold Wolf to his promise.

“When Wolf is sworn in as governor, he will swear to uphold the state constitution, which includes the environmental rights amendment,” said Dunn. “And this is something that I think he will pay attention to.” Dunn’s group supports the 5 percent severance tax, because she says it will raise more money and benefit all Pennsylvanians" (http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2014/11/04/what-wolfs-win-means-for-energy-and-the-environment/).

But if you're not prepared to be fracked and pipelined into ecological oblivion, be prepared to fight.

Dunn's inane comments are a a variety of trying to have your cake and it it too--except that it's not even that since PennFuture knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Wolf will not advocate for a state moratorium on drilling, is concerned not one iota with the environmental rights amendment beyond its value as a tool for getting re-elected, and will not act in any fashion that will endanger that prospect. 

Moreover, there will be virtually no pressure on him to press for a moratorium since he knows that these fake greenies will vote for him anyways.

Make no mistake about it: 

We will see a pretense to "holding Governor Wolf's feet to the fire." But behind this will be standing to one side the gas companies and to the other the fake greens who cannot be described in any other way--at least honestly--than as effectively colluding with the gas. I say "colluding" because they cannot NOT know better. Nonetheless, they'll also continue to be willing to stand by silently while those of us who have stood on principle instead of political expediency are surveilled, arrested, and demonized as much by them as by the gas thugs.

Governor Elect Tom Wolf does offer us a celebratory cake--but its layers are saturated with drilling waste, its frosting tinged with benzene. 

So when its celebrants offer you a piece, say "no thanks." Then tell them that you value you health, your property, your neighbors, your community, and your climate too much to eat from a banquet laid out in iniquity. 

Then ask them why they sold you out.

Selling Out a Movement to Guarantee a Seat at the Sacred Table of the Status Quo: Pennsylvanians Against Fracking

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee, State Gamelands 75, PA

What follows are two items--intimately connected. 

First is an email exchange between myself and a representative from Food & Water Watch --an organization that claims to be anti-fracking but, in advocating for a moratorium that has no chance of becoming a reality, and in supporting the Democrat candidate for governor Tom Wolf who is avowedly pro-drilling, cannot make that claim with any force or consistency. 

The significance of Food and Water Watch here, however, is two-fold:

(1) FWW is one of the organizational conveners of a new coalition--Pennsylvanians Against Fracking (PAF, Pennsylvanians Against Fracking)--which cannot claim with any force to be against fracking. Indeed, they cannot coherently claim to support any position other than that conciliatory to the will of the Democratic Party--a party that, despite its hollow insistence to the contrary is as comfortable as the Republicans with 

(a) the ongoing liquidation of the state's ecological assets,
(b) the destruction and basic human rights violations of communities, and
(c) the surveillance of the Commonwealth's citizens

It's also interesting to note that there appears to be no website for PAF other than a Facebook page whose single post links to a Marcellus Drilling News story applauding the cooperation between the gas industry and anti-fracking activists (The One Issue on Which Anti- and Pro-Drillers Agree | Marcellus Drilling News). Indeed, the article presumably approved by PAF is a cheerlead for Breathe Easy Susquehanna County--a group which advocates sitting down with the gas companies to work out "best practices" for continued drilling.

(2) FWW--Colorado recently sold out Coloradans who they'd led to believe were in good hands because FWW had promised to champion a "statewide ballot initiative to bolster the authority of communities to ban oil and gas extraction." FWW not only caved to pressure intended to protect the seats of Democrats, but like Congressman Jared Polis, they were willing to settle for "feel good" measures like convening a stakeholder group that includes gas company representatives as if they were community members toward regulating--but not empowering communities towards self-determination.  What the Colorado case shows is that FWW is not about banning fracking--but about whatever pretense to regulation will insure it stays in the good graces of a two party system that is really a no party system (How Congressman Jared Polis and Food and Water Watch sold out Colorado | Colorado Statesman).

Indeed, if FWW were interested in achieving a ban--if this were PAF's goal--they'd join Shale Justice--the PA coalition and 5013c that vets applicant organizations for mission statements consistent with its mission. The fact, however, is that aspirant Big Greens (little greens) like PAF and its faux-coalition members cannot take this principled stand and keep their place at a table at which compromise is routinely served up along with deals--just like the one Polis agreed to.

The email exchange below is important in that it illustrates the emergence from within the anti-fracking movement of a new breed of appeaser/collaborator, really an old breed of opportunist who sees in the ongoing crisis the opportunity to cash in on the momentum this movement has generated over the last six years. But what makes this exchange particularly significant is that no one in this new faux-coalition could possibly believe that a moratorium on drilling is even remotely possible--and so we are left to wonder what are its real objectives. 

Here's the correspondence:

FWW:  

Hey Wendy-

I just left you a voicemail to this effect and am writing this email to follow up. It seems like you have a bunch of concerns and I wanted to try to address them over the phone, but without that route right now I'll start things off with this email.

I don't know where your information on this coalition is coming from but there are a bunch of things you've assumed that are just not true.

1.  Pennsylvanians Against Fracking will allow any group to join- anyone can fill out our online form, but we make follow up calls to any entity that signs on to verify who they are, and we also regularly
look over the list to make sure member organizations are appropriate. We will be creating a website, and we'll be listing members on that website, and there is no way you'll see CSSD [The Center for Sustainable Shale Development] or anything like that signed on. I don't know where that assumption comes from.

2.  Pennsylvanians Against Fracking is working to get Democrats elected and get a seat at their table- This is a coalition of 501c3 nonprofits that will not do any electoral activity, period. After the election, we'll be working to put pressure on whoever is elected to put a moratorium on fracking. I don't understand where the assumption that this coalition is in the pocket of Democrats comes from.

3.  The CELDF OpEd attacking Food & Water Watch- if you can explain to me how Food & Water Watch can be implicated in the backstabbing deal cut by Rep Polis, go for it, but the piece is just flat out baseless. Please explain to me how any of the article referenced is relevant to this situation. You write that you "have much more to say about this latest attempt to co-opt the anti-fracking movement." I'd appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me- we can disagree, but I'd like you to at least have your assumptions straight before making public statements.. There's no reason why a vibrant, robust anti-fracking movement can't have multiple coalitions pushing for different viewpoints.

Wendy Lynne Lee:

Let me address your points:

1. The sign on does not stipulate any vetting process whatsoever, so there is no way of knowing whether or what this is. Moreover, in so far as the principle conveners include both Food and Water Watch and Berks Gas Truth, there is no reason to believe that this coalition stands exclusively for a ban on fracking or its infrastructure. Indeed, if THAT were its goal, there already exists a coalition representing that position--Shale Justice. Why not simply join an already existing 5013c with grant backing?  Also, a follow up call is not a vetting process in any meaningful sense. At Shale Justice they ask for a mission statement, and it must affirm their commitment to the primary message. You make no
claim whatsoever about criteria for the sign-on, so you have no principled way of excluding CCSC, COGENT, BESC--or any other faux anti-cracking organization.

2. Working to get Democrats elected is precisely what we should NOT be doing, Sam. Tom Wolf is PRO-FRACKING. There are virtually NO Democrats who are anti-cracking, and this notion that electing Democrats will make some difference towards the end os a nightmare that many of us LIVE is fool-hardy at best. I appreciate you clarifying that point for me--but it is on that point precisely that you will receive the most criticism from folks like me. The argument made out by the Dems for a severance tax is ABSURD and it will HARM people. By leveling a tax upon which funding for education and other social programs will be based INSTITUTIONALIZES the gas industry. They will become part of the funding infrastructure of the state--there could be no better gift to them--and that is what YOUR
candidates support.

3. Thank you for making it clear that the real aim of this coalition is to get a seat at the table. That is a prescription perhaps for advancing the career aspirations of coalition members, but it is not a principled
stand to end fracking. And it will NOT achieve a moratorium. I voted with the Dems when it was still rational to think that achieving it could make a difference. That time is LONG past. The move to gain a seat at the table is nothing but conciliatory--and it will harm us all.

4. The CELDF article is very relevant because it demonstrates how clearly FWW is NOT about empowering communities, NOT about achieving a ban, and NOT about the defense of civil liberty--but, as you say, its about getting seats at the table for its own functionaries--and that's it.

5. The Civil Rights Movement could not brook BOTH a movement to end segregation and find some middle ground where African Americans could, say, go in the front door of the diner--but not vote. Ending segragation was all or none--either you were on board with that objective or you weren't. It would never have been remotely morally defensible to liberate some of the concentration camps during WWII--but sacrifice some others to the NAZIS. We will either come together as an international community to stem the tide of climate change--or we will all suffer, some far more than others, from the failure. The anti-fracking movement cannot brook BOTH the demand a BAN on the gas companies and simultaneously negotiate the terms of our surrender to them through regulation. So, no--there is room for many differing strategies, but there is NOT room for different objectives when those objectives stand directly contrary to each other. If you're for a ban, you cannot settle for regulation. If you're comfortable with the regulation required for getting a seat at the table, you have wholly jettisoned the struggle for a ban.

Perhaps you will label this "purist," but what it is is clear-headed and principled. I have no other agenda than to end fracking. Folks who are angling for a seat at the Democratic Party table do.

FWW: 

"Wow I can't believe I didn't include the 'NOT'- we are NOT working to get democrats elected" 

FWW:

And we are NOT working to get a seat at the table.

Wendy Lynne Lee:

[L]et me make this simple: if your sign-on orgs were interested in achieving a BAN, you'd have all requested admission to Shale Justice. You didn't. Ergo, your objectives must be something else, and THAT can be derived from other actions and inactions. Just to trouble shoot--I am no longer in Shale Justice--I rotated off the executive board months ago to pursue other scholarly projects. So, I have no vested interest here either. I do have an interest in the truth and in insuring that people are not misled. Hence, my FB post.

FWW:

This isn't about picking teams. There are many reasons why this coalition needed to be created. No coalition was working exclusively on a statewide level to stop fracking in Pennsylvania. My sense is Shale Justice has a much more expansive mission than that (local, state, national, international)- and that's Great. But what Shale Justice Coalition is and has been is not what Pennsylvanians Against Fracking aims to be.

As far as the other items-

1. Do we need to stipulate a vetting process? Once we have a list of members posted, you can tear it apart. But to insinuate we're designing this coalition to let the CSSDs of the world in is absurd.

2. We agree here. We want to stop fracking.

3. This coalition is about building power to stop fracking, period.

4. My question was more specific- I asked if you could explain to me how we can be implicated in the Polis deal. We fought hard for that ballot measure, and for several bans across the state. And we fought hard to keep Polis from stabbing us in the back. Can you explain to me how we "sold out Colorado?"

5. This is a straw man. We're not arguing for regulation. We're arguing for a halt to fracking as a means to get to a permanent ban. As far as the comparison with the civil rights movement, we must have studied different civil rights movements because the one I'm familiar with was chock full of diversity of strategies, tactics, and yes- objectives.

Wendy Lynne Lee:

This IS about picking teams--you can either be on the team that takes a principled stand against fracking OR you can be on the team that's willing to settle for regulation--but you CAN'T be on both teams; they're mutually exclusive.

Shale Justice is BOTH a statewide organization AND works in other states as well--indeed, we MUST seek to be expansive--otherwise we're not only acting merely parochially, we're broadcasting the message that we'd be comfortable with drilling elsewhere--just not here.

You're correct the PAF's aims are not those of SJ's--but that is what I find both troubling and misrepresented. PAF is not exclusively against fracking--that is a misrepresentation of its mission and the participatory orgs--including FWW.

1. Yes--you do need a vetting process. Otherwise any org CAN and will sign on--without it you represent nothing and no one. My suggestion of CSSD is not absurd--what prevents them from becoming a sign on? Where DO you draw the line?

2-3. I have no reason to think you want to stop fracking; indeed, supporting Democrat candidates--which is clearly where BGT stands--will not only not stop fracking--it will institutionalize it in the form of a tax base. If PAF wanted to stop fracking, it could not include FWW or BGT--neither of which have taken any such no compromise stand consistently.

4. I am going to leave Polis for now--but will return to this question tomorrow.

5.  Not a straw argument at all--my point is that the only objective worth defending in, for example, the civil rights movement was the one that ended segregation.

This really is pretty simple. If PAF's objective was to end fracking, its orgs would not have sought to reinvent the wheel, but would have joined SJ. Perhaps there are reasons of which I am not aware why its members opted against this obvious choice--but none of these can have anything to do with objectives.

FWW:

As far as FWW's mission, clearly we can represent ourselves as against fracking because we apparently made it through SJC's vetting process.

1. I didn't say we don't need a vetting process, I said we don't need to share one [Emphasis--WLL]. I'm much more concerned with getting stuff done than worrying about who we're going to have to keep out of this coalition.

2-3. Who are the democratic candidates anyone is supporting?

4. Okay, eager to hear your response. I respect your opinion but this specific point is unquestionably a baseless attack on our organization.5. In retrospect sure. But there were all sorts of more radical and more moderate objectives within the movement. It oversimplifies the movement to say there was only one objective, or one worth fighting for. That diversity allows movements to thrive, and if we tear each other down we're really not going to get anywhere. There are ways to constructively criticize our movement from within.

Wendy Lynne Lee: 

It's irrelevant whether you made it through SJ's vetting process in the past. You would not now, and you did not decide to join. I can only assume that this is because you do not really stand for a ban--otherwise you would have signed on. This argument is hurting you, not helping you.

1. So--you think PAF can have a vetting process that is SECRET? WOW! So PAF is really a secret society with a public face? And the ends--whatever they are--justify these nefarious means? WOW!

2. BGT is clearly on the side of trying to persuade Tom Wolf on the moratorium. Or, let me rephrase that, BGT is clearly on the side of using the argument for the moratorium as a ploy to get invites to Tom Wolf functions. Moreover, if PAF is not about getting DEMS elected, what is its reason for being--the elections are just around the corner. Don't you think it obvious what this timing implies? And AGAIN--if PAF is about gaining a ban, THAT is Shale Justice.

5. No--you are simply wrong here. Just as there could be only one morally defensible objective for the civil rights movement--ending segregation. there is only one here--ending fracking. PAF does not and cannot stand for that. You confuse "objectivrs" with "objectives worth defending" and with "inconsistent objectives." To promote regulation is to promote fracking.

SO Pennsylvanians Against Fracking is essentially a SECRET SOCIETY--like Skull and Bones--that has no publicly accessible vetting process--but chooses its members according to private criteria (or none at all). And this really says it ALL: PAF exists to advance its objective of insuring its own people have a seat at the table in a Tom Wolf administration. And THAT isn't about fracking at ALL even if PAF claims otherwise. THAT is a psuedo-coalition that's merely using fracking as a hot-button issue to gain cache at that table. If any of its organizations were serious about seeing fracking banned, they would have joined Shale Justice. They didn't--so we can only conclude that they have other objectives--Ones that we will be no more privy to than their secret selection process--might as well just call that FRIENDS OF SOME FOLKS LOOKING TO ADVANCE THEIR POLITICAL CAREERS. This is dishonest, and it hurts people.

FWW:

I don't see a moratorium as a means to regulation. I see it as a means to stop fracking, and a step towards banning fracking. I believe we state that in the coalition letter.

As far as why this coalition serves a unique purpose, I'd argue that it's practically unfeasible to run campaigns at every level of decision-making, and that to accomplish any goal, ban/moratorium/regs/whatever, you need to focus resources on one of those levels. That's what PAF is doing. That may be parochial, but the levers through which we make change happen are parochial.

Wendy Lynne Lee:

There was a time--now long past, as I have said already--when a moratorium might have had some positive effect. I VOTED with the Dems for that moratorium. I was at that Democratic Committee meeting with Karen Feridun speaking to the resolution. But that time is past for several reasons:

1. Tremendously much more damage since that time has been caused by this industry. We simply do not NEED a moratorium to "study" the damage. It's right in front of us every day. Hence THAT argument for a moratorium now sounds absurd.

2. If any sufficiently substantial number of Democrats were going to sign onto a moratorium--they would have already. They've had plenty of time. They didn't. They're not going to now (a) be) See (1), and (b) they do NOT want one.

3. The fact is that "the moratorium argument" is nothing more at this point than a device for leveraging this "coalition." None of you can seriously believe it stands a whisper of a chance--so I cannot take it seriously as anything other than a device for getting yourselves invited to Tom Wolf events, and subsequently getting yourselves seats at the Democrat administration tables. I think, in other words, this use of the moratorium argument simply a cynical ploy.

As for "practically unfeasible to run campaigns at every level of
decision-making...," that you string out goals "ban/moratorium/regs/whatever" is telling. It suggests you really don't get the Grand Canyon of difference between these utterly incompatible goals. Moreover, at least for one of them--the BAN--you had a coalition. If THAT was what you were after in PAF, you would have joined Shale Justice. That you continue to return to this theme only implies all the more that there are other reasons FWW didn't join Shale Justice--and that you don't want to lay these out for public inspection. I can only assume that this is because your objectives are NOT a ban.

The "levers through which we make change happen" are not necessarily parochial. we will not stem the tide of climate instability with any such approach. Moreover, what you really mean--as is clear from the context--is that you think change must be made through legislative/regulatory/within the laid out channels of law. But that law--as CELDF shows so clearly--is crafted FOR the corporations--not for either communities or private persons. It is a prescription for more of the same--fracking, CAFOs, Walmarts, etc. And I am sure you know that.
So, again, PAF is a cynical ploy to make sure its people get their seats at the tables of that legislation--but that will yield no moratorium--much less a ban--and you cannot NOT know it.

FWW:

I'm not going to engage in any discussion with you while you post my emails, out of context and misconstrued, publicly. In the midst of our ongoing conversation to boot. Good luck, Wendy.

I hope CELDF gives you an answer to my question on that OpEd that's satisfactory for you.

Wendy Lynne Lee:

[T]his is a PUBLIC media. None of us have any reason or right to assume otherwise. Moreover, I have nothing to hide, and I assume you don't either. I posted your missive ver batim--no misrepresentation, no deletions, no additions. And then I posted my response. If you weren't worried about the strength of your arguments, there'd be no problem here.

FWW:

You posted my comment without my immediate correction that there should be
a NOT in the second point, and you posted your comment knowing that my
intention was to communicate the opposite of what you responded to. That
is misleading, and out of context of where our conversation was at that
point in time.

I have nothing to hide, but I do generally assume that email
communications will not be shared publicly. I have nothing to hide, but
I'm not okay with 1 on 1 email conversations being shared without my
consent. Someone said something about civil liberties?

I think we're done here, but if you decide you actually want to know what
happened in Colorado you can call me. And please contact me by phone for
any future communications I don't feel comfortable communicating with you
by email.

Wendy Lynne Lee:

First, the fact is that you spoke the truth in the first post. I am more than happy to post the entire exchange--and let people judge for themselves. None of us have any justification in assuming that email is private. And none of us gets to demand consent. No civil liberties are violated in any fashion here--that is absurd--because you haven't the right to assume privacy, the right to consent--nope.

**********************

And there you have it. I think this exchange fairly epitomizes the implosion in the Pennsylvania anti-fracking movement--an implosion ignited not by any ideological divide, but by the hi-jacking of its momentum by those who aspire to be the sponsors of, as Chris Hedges likely rightly puts it, "the last gasp of the climate change liberals." "There will be no speeches. There is no list of demands. It will be a climate-themed street fair," where those more interested in advancing their own fame and fortune replaces substance--at the cost of us all  (Chris Hedges: The Last Gasp of Climate Change Liberals - Chris Hedges - Truthdig).

Just like Pennsylvanians Against Fracking--anyone can join the People's Climate March.

Not just anyone can join the real resistance. For that--you have to have some guts.  I'll be there with a camera--on the look out for actions that might actually matter-- PopularResistance.Org, for example:

“The march is symbolic,” said Kevin Zeese of Popular Resistance when I reached him by phone, “but we are past the time of symbolism. What we need is direct action against the United Nations during the meeting. This should include blockades and disruption of the meeting itself. We need to highlight the fact that the United Nations has sold out to corporate interests.

A bit too scary for folks who are looking forward to that cup-o-joe with Tom Wolf. But then again, why should the United nations be the only faux-representative of the people to sell out?