October 1, 2013
The Fraudulent “Logic” of the “Middle Ground” Among the most pernicious and calculative strategies for extorting consent currently in fashion with the natural gas industry and their public relations agents—particularly the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD)—is what I’ll call the “argument for the middle ground.” There are several varieties of this brand of rhetorical extortion, but the basic structure of such an “argument” goes like this: The truth can be counted on to lay somewhere in “the middle,” where “the middle” is invariably some “compromise” between opposing factions, and where “everyone” can feel good that their interests have been met more or less in that “middle.” This “truth” via consensus can then be promoted as “reasonable,” and “just” and anyone who seeks to counter it with opposing facts or a challenge […]
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May 28, 2013
Note: This piece is to be read as public comment at the June 3rd, 4-6PM DCNR Hearing at Lycoming College, Wendle Hall, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It is not intended as an analytical piece-but as a philosophical and moral argument. My name is Wendy Lynne Lee, and I’m a member of the Shale Justice Coalition. I’m an academic and a writer by profession, and a committed activist on behalf of social justice, animal welfare, and environmental integrity. I also take a lot of pictures, and I have made it my project to document in words and photographs the drill pads, sand cans, compressors, open pits, the army of toxic waste tankers, the loss of habitat, the forest fragmentation, the creek and stream pollution, the substandard pipeline welds, the road destruction, the systematic […]
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