Don't Listen to HER -- She's a Conspiracy Theorist!

[paft.livejournal.com]

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with end of month writing deadlines, projects at work, and, most time-consuming of all, the San Francisco International Film Festival. I saw a lot I liked there, but as of today, my favorite bit of film is not something I saw at the SFFIF:



Checks and Balances Project has provided a nice video demonstration of how officials called out on bad behavior will try to laugh it off – in this case, unsuccessfully. The first clip is of someone who showed up to a public hearing to protest proposed “fracking” in Pennsylvania. She complains about speakers not being called in the sequence of the sign up list.

Jet Miskis: We were one of the first people in this building. I signed on at #5. We were directed up here to the second floor. That’s where we were told to sign in. I was number five that signed in. No other sheet had signatures on it. I looked. And then I gave my position to Dr. Volz and this order, in which they’re presenting this, is not the order in which those signatures were taken….

Dr. Conrad Volz (University of Pittsburgh): I would concur. I saw the list and I was quite amazed when number five came up and my name wasn’t on the list but certainly none of these gentlemen that were testifying on this list were on the list that I signed…

In the second video, Chad Sailor, Communications Director for Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor, attempts to “explain” why this happened. Unfortunately for him, a levelheaded and polite protestor overhears him:

Chad Sailor: There were sign up sheets at a couple of different locations. First come, first served. The protestors did not arrive until eleven, well after the meeting had started, and that’s when they started signing up for the most part. The sign up sheets were out and available for people to sign…

Protester: No, there was a separate list up here, and they made us come up here to sign them. They wouldn’t let us go in there to sign them, they told us we weren’t allowed to come in. So the list that were up here, we were the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, etc, etc. What they did was they read the list that they had downstairs, which were the supporters of the gas initiative that they allowed in. And the protesters that were outside protesting had to sign the sheet up here, which is why we were given second dibs.

(she walks away)

Sailor: (Smiles, apparently under the impression that since she’s stepped around a corner, she can’t hear him.) Yes, everything’s a conspiracy, everything is pitted against them. Don’t know how you can argue against that.

Woman reappears: I didn’t say that was a conspiracy. That was the absolute truth. That was what happened, I was here, I signed it. I’m speaking from fact because that’s what happened. I tried to go in and sign, they didn’t let me go in and sign and I was told I had to come up here and sign. So that’s not conspiracy. That’s what happened. That’s called ‘fact.’

The entire report from Checks and Balances Project can be found here;

I love videos where ordinary citizens handle themselves well as they confront officials like Sailor. The woman in the t-shirt doesn’t raise her voice, or resort to personal attack. She tersely, logically, and firmly states the facts, and does follow up when Sailor tries to weasel his way out of it.

Sailor’s demeanor in this video is also worth comment – note that air of polite regret when he explains that, darn it, those protestors showed up late, and that’s why they had to go to the back of the line. After he’s called on this, and he thinks the protestor is out of earshot, he fixes the videographer with a man-to-man smile (Oh, that wacky dame!) and tries to pass off her simple and damning comments as some paranoid conspiracy theory. The sheer smugness of the insider has rarely been captured so perfectly.

I don’t know how much people here know about the practice of “fracking,” but it was recently the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary called Gasland, that got the Natural Gas industry all bent out of shape. Their reaction to the Oscar nomination was similar to Sailor’s – they attempted to paint the documentary as some sort of faked effort by an amateur.

The nasty effects of Fracking are well-documented, so the industry apologists have to fall back on marginalizing critics through sheer ‘tude. When you have no solid arguments, all that’s left is posturing.

Crossposted from thoughtcrimes

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yes, we all want our drinking water to catch fire when you put a match next to it. NOT!!! (http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-sink-fire-031809,0,572229.story)

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

http://cogcc.state.co.us/library/GASLAND%20DOC.pdf

[paft.livejournal.com]

I was going to post back to you the filmmaker's very well documented rebuttal, but somebody beat me to it.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

great. a documented rebuttal from a filmmaker.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Is he using other filmmakers for his cites?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

There is nothing wrong with being a "Conspiracy Theorist" if you have the goods to back it up.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

A conspiracy theorist is treated as such and we're supposed to be upset?

The nasty effects of Fracking are well-documented

Oh come on. There's conspiracies, including a terribly irresponsible documentary by an outsider artist, the EPA significantly studied it (http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/uic/pdfs/cbmstudy_attach_uic_final_fact_sheet.pdf), and there are no verified issue.

This is typical energy scaremongering. I shouldn't continue to be surprised, but I am. It's not that the documentary was faked, but fundamentally dishonest from things like the cause of flaming water (http://www.propublica.org/feature/colorado-study-links-methane-in-water-drilling-422) to the massive fish kill (http://www.observer-reporter.com/OR/Story/06-05-2010-gas-movie) Josh Fox attributed to the fracking.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

but the documentary got an oscar nomination... what better documented proof than several thousand pointy thumbs up from the academy of arts and sciences?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I did an inappropriately loud cheer when it didn't win. I was convinced it was going to.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

all together now...

...it was a conspiracy!

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

the academmy of -motion picture- arts and sciences. that makes it even better...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

the EPA significantly studied it

You linked to a study done in 2004, and the link to the final report is expired (it's not even on the server anymore). And let's say, the EPA was a bit less in a regulatory mind back then than now. In 2005, the oil and gas industry was exempted from the Clean Water act, allowing some rather nasty chemicals to be injected into ground water.

And while it's fine and dandy the gas detected in the sinks is "natural," the bigger point I think is that the "natural" gas was released precisely because of the fracking process creating creases in the rock allowing it to escape to drinking water.



The director of the movie rebuts a lot of the things mentioned too here. (http://1trickpony.cachefly.net/gas/pdf/Affirming_Gasland_Sept_2010.pdf)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You linked to a study done in 2004, and the link to the final report is expired (it's not even on the server anymore). And let's say, the EPA was a bit less in a regulatory mind back then than now. In 2005, the oil and gas industry was exempted from the Clean Water act, allowing some rather nasty chemicals to be injected into ground water.

The industry was exempted from fracking specifically because of the EPA study. Which was probably the right move.

Big image is big, but Fox also cannot/does not prove that the drilling liberated the gas. Nor does he want to, I suspect - his "documentary" works better if he doesn't.

Reading through this really quick, a lot of it seems to be him taking the side of frustrated individuals who don't like the answers they're getting. That's an interesting way to rebut the evidence, I guess.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

How do you feel about that exemption of fracking, in light of Dr Ingraffea's assertion that fracking "Yes, definitely" can lead to natural gas entering the water supply?

[paft.livejournal.com]

"Conspiracy theorist?" She wasn't extrapolating some elaborate conspiracy based on circumstantial evidence. She was describing her experience as a protester. Where's the "conspiracy theory" in what she said?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. That's not why she's a conspiracy theorist.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's amazing how people stating facts and demanding proof of assertions are called conspiracy theorists. You gave a good example here, and another is the Bin Laden thing.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13313201

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-02/pakistan-taliban-says-bin-laden-is-still-alive-geo-says-1-.html

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The "thing" I'm referring to is not disputing that he's dead.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Another is the theory that people landed on the Moon. You can't build those rockets that took us to the Moon and the science of the Apollo program can't be found again. It was all technology reverse-engineered from Megatron anyway so it's not like it matters. ;P

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I love it when a monthly topic makes an appearance in a thread.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Hang on, isn't OBL megatron? But if he gave the science for the moon landing, well, that means... HE CAN TIME TRAVEL!

We're all doomed. Perhaps OBL has been killed 50 times already but he keeps just going back and respawning in another temporal dimension.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

No, but good effort.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

As a resident of NYC I really hope they let the investigations go through before they're allowed to do this shit. The ridiculous amount of money they're spending to silence the opposition speaks volumes about the consequences of what they're doing.