"Fracking" is So Bad It Sets Tapwater on Fire

"Fracking" is So Bad It Sets Tapwater on Fire, Just See the Documentary "Gasland"
Fri, 04/29/2011
THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR TRUTHOUT/BUZZFLASH
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12649

Each month or so, BuzzFlash is privileged to have nationally syndicated progressive talk show host, television newscaster and author Thom Hartmann review a progressive book or DVD exclusively for BuzzFlash/Truthout.

Gasland (DVD)
Directed and Narrated by Josh Fox

Both aesthetically and practically, there are several things that make Josh Fox's documentary "Gasland" extraordinary and unique - and, frankly, the sort of view that will make you want to share it with everybody you know (particularly if they are politically active or an elected official!).

The first is that Josh Fox - the guy who made the movie - is also the guy who lived the story. Rarely do we find this combination in a documentary, and when we do it's often because somebody who was already an accomplished documentarian went out in search of a story to jump into and make a movie from. In this case, the story started with Josh being offered what are really big bucks - $100,000 - for poor people in rural Pennsylvania, if only he'd let his land be used to drill for natural gas.

This started Fox on his odyssey, which led him from the hills of Pennsylvania, across the American Midwest and West, and ultimately to discoveries about mind-bogglingly corrupt deals made by the Bush Administration and Dick Cheney which - literally - have and continue to poison American citizens.

The main focus of "Gasland" is "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing, a way of busting up underground seams of shale so distributed bubbles of gas can form into large, and tappable, pools of natural gas. Think of breaking up the inside of a sponge, for example.

The technique involves a witches' brew (no slur intended on our noble Wiccan friends - just don't have a better term) of toxic chemicals, waste water, and whatever else may be at hand pumped into the ground under incredible pressure to crack or fracture these underground formations. In a perfect world -- with water tables always totally separate from the places where God put them -- it actually has a certain engineering geek elegance to it.

But this isn't that fantasy world. Instead of just recovering gas, the chemicals often seep into water tables - usually with some of the natural gas - leading to some of the most dramatic scenes in the movie where residents of gas country are able to light their tapwater on fire as it's coming out of the tap.

It's a testimony to Fox's brilliant filmmaking that "fracking" has become part of our lexicon, Halliburton's and Cheney's crimes are becoming more widely known, and citizens are organizing across the nation to fight back. Another backhand testimony can be seen in all the very clean/beautiful/elegant TV ads - costing the industry millions - to try to make America's natural gas industry so pure, friendly, job-creating, and and all-American. If Fox hadn't made this movie, they wouldn't have to be spending all this money to greenwash their dirty work.

This movie is at once folksy/friendly and to-the-gut-hard-hitting. It shows the essential goodness and, frankly, vulnerability of most middle Americans - while bringing into stark relief the horrors of the behavior of the few sociopathic predators among us who have used their lack of a conscience to elevate themselves to positions of great power and wealth.

And it implicitly is a call to action that will inspire you for a long, long time.

Be sure to invite a dozen friends and neighbors over when you watch it - and consider it as the perfect birthday or other gift for any friends who need a good awakening.

This is one of the finest pieces of filmmaking to come along in quite a while.

You can obtain a copy of the "Gasland" DVD with a minimum contribution to Truthout/BuzzFlash.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and host of the top nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his program. He also now has a daily television program at RT Network. You can also listen to Thom over the Internet.

You can also read Thom's seminal book on corporate personhood, "Unequal Protection," exclusively on Truthout. Or receive the book with a minimum donation to Truthout.

A Brief History of Neoliberalism

http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/780

A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Paperback) -- Thom Hartmann's Pick of the Month
By David Harvey
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

Here's the bad news - most Americans don't know what "neoliberalism" is.

But the good news is that David Harvey has written the most brilliant, concise, and clear history of neoliberalism I've ever found. It should be required reading in every civics class in high-school and college in America, and everybody who votes or considers themselves informed about politics and economics (and the intersection of the two) should have a dog-eared copy next to their bed or favorite chair for regular re-reading.

Harvey begins with the imposition of neoliberalism - a radical economic/political theory that everything will work out optimally if only the power of democratic governments are reduced to virtually nothing and the power of economic elites (known as "the free market") hold most power in society - in Iraq and Chile. Iraq was going to be the Great Example for the neoliberals - they were so convinced of their theory that they didn't have a Plan B for any time after the invasion - and it utterly failed. Which is why you only read about the Iraq experiment in neoliberalism in books written by the few people, like Harvey and Naomi Klein, who have noticed it.

In Chile it was forced on the people, through the dictatorship of Pinochet. In The United States it came into being through subterfuge, through an alliance of big business and inherited wealth funding think tanks and media to change the minds and thinking of Americans to accept the notions of the "free market" and the idea that "big government" is a bad thing. It's being peddled in Europe with considerable success (it started in '79 with Thatcher two years before Reagan put it into place here in the US), with France the most recent country to fall with the election of Sarkosy.

While full of facts and figures and details (at least a third of the pages in my copy of this book are dog-eared and marked up), Harvey's "Brief History of Neoliberalism" is marvelously readable. In some ways it almost reads like a thriller - what will these people do next? And over and over again we see not only how they screw things up, but how they work those screw-ups to their own advantage. Neoliberalism, after all, is all about the economic and power elites taking more and more of the resources, income, and small-d democratic power away from the masses. David Harvey has produced a classic book.

It's an absolute must-read. It'll totally change the way you understand the news (particularly the news you'll find in The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times), and your opinion of the behaviors of your elected officials.

Get at least two copies - it's an inexpensive paperback and you'll want one to read, and one to give away...

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and the host of The Thom Hartmann Program syndicated nationally by Air America Radio. His website is ThomHartmann.com

Cracking the Code

http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/798

Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision (Hardcover)
By Thom Hartmann
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

We've been trying to find what sums up coming to know Thom Hartmann.

And we've decided that it is that his interest, curiosity and passion are contagious, particularly when it comes to ideas and politics.

Among the progressive talk show hosts, he's become acknowledged as "the professor" of the airwaves, but one that is eminently engaging and accessible. Listening to his boundless interest in his guests and callers, and his vast knowledge about obscure issues isn't intimidating; it's downright invigorating.

How Thom finds the time to write books too -- and he's written a lot of them too, all solid -- is beyond us. And he even pens monthly reviews for BuzzFlash! He just e-mailed us that his upcoming one will be on "A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign " by Edward J. Larson

Okay, that's enough praise.

His latest book is about what has come to be called "messaging," as in how does the right wing do it so well and the progressives do it so poorly. Although, we are getting better at it, except for the dolts on Capitol Hill who still are intimidated by White House talking points, damn the reality.

We've interviewed Thom on more than one occasion, and he's a master at understanding how political communication works.

That's what his new book is about, and it offers strategies for progressives to start going on the offensive in the messaging wars.

This is a practical guide, clearly written and of particular value to all those people who write BuzzFlash and ask: "How do I respond to my right wing friend when he/she says...?" You can fill in the blank.

Get a copy of "Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision," and start mastering the art of political persuasion.

Here is the table of contents for "Cracking the Code":

Introduction: Talking the Talk

Part I: Telling Your Story
Chapter 1 Cracking the Worldview Code
Chapter 2 Cracking the Story Code

Part II: Feeling Comes First
Chapter 3 Cracking the Sensory Code
Chapter 4 The Body�s Secret Language
Chapter 5 How Feelings Are Anchored
Chapter 6 The �Negative� Code

Part III: The Meaning of a Communication Is the Response You Get
Chapter 7 The Code of the Core Story
Chapter 8 Mastering the Learning Trance
Chapter 9 Future Pacing
Chapter 10 Framing

Part IV: The Map Is Not the Territory
Chapter 11 Learning the Legend
Chapter 12 The Motivation Code
Chapter 13 Chunking the Code
Chapter 14 The Identity Code

Conclusion: Reclaiming the Liberal Story

From the publisher, Berrett-Koehler:

"Millions of working Americans talk, act, and vote as if their economic interests match those of the megawealthy, the multinational corporations, and the politicians who do their bidding. How did this happen? According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy.

Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging -- they learned these techniques. There is no reason why progressives can't learn them too. In Cracking the Code, Hartmann shows you how. Drawing on his background as a psychotherapist and advertising executive as well as a national radio host, he breaks down the science and technology of effective communication so you can apply it to your own efforts to counter right-wing disinformation. It's both an art and a science -- as Hartmann explains, political persuasion is as much about biology as ideology, about knowing how the brain processes information and how that influences the way people perceive messages, make decisions, and form a worldview.

Throughout the book, Hartmann shows you precisely how to master this technology, providing examples dating back to the time of the Founding Fathers. As you read deeply in this book, you'll see things you hadn't realized were there -- in everything from advertising to political rants -- and discover abilities you didn't know you had. Whether you;re a politician, an activist, a volunteer, or a concerned citizen, you'll develop a strong sense for how to reach into that part of the collective human psyche where we truly do have the power to create a new world."

Screwed

http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/634

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do about It (Paperback Edition)
By Thom Hartmann, With New Afterword by Greg Palast. Introduction by Mark Crispin Miller.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

From the Publisher:

The American middle class is on its deathbed. Ordinary folks who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. If you're not a CEO, you're probably screwed.

America wasn't meant to be like this. Air America Radio host Thom Hartmann shows that our Founding Fathers worked hard to ensure that a small group of wealthy people would never dominate this country--they'd had enough of aristocracy. They put policies in place to ensure a thriving middle class. When the middle class took a hit, beginning in the post-Civil War Gilded Age and culminating in the Great Depression, democracy-loving leaders like Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower revitalized it through initiatives like antitrust regulations, fair labor laws, the minimum wage, Social Security, and Medicare.

So what happened? In the last twenty-five years, we've witnessed an undeclared war against the middle class. The so-called conservatives waging this war are only interested in conserving--and steadily increasing--their own wealth and power. Hartmann shows how, under the guise of "freeing" the market, they've systematically dismantled the programs set up by Republicans and Democrats to protect the middle class and have installed policies that favor the superrich and corporations.

But it's not too late to return to the America our Founders envisioned. Hartmann outlines a series of commonsense proposals that will ensure that our public institutions are not turned into private fiefdoms and that people's basic needs--education, health care, a living wage--are met in a way that allows the middle class to expand, not shrink.

America will be stronger with a growing, prospering middle class--rule by the rich will only make it weaker. Democracy requires a fair playing field, and it will survive only if We the People stand up, speak out, and reclaim our democratic birthright.

Summary:

By the bestselling author and Air America Radio host heard on more than eighty radio stations coast to coast seven days a week

Reveals how the middle class, nurtured as the backbone of democracy by our Founding Fathers, is being undermined by so-called conservatives

Shows how we can reverse the erosion of the middle class and restore the egalitarian vision of the Founders

Expanded edition with a new chapter on immigration and a new afterword by Greg Palast