An actual fracking site in Warren Center, PA
The Marcellus Shale runs under my home, Binghamton, NY
Image courtesy of WikiCommons
Frackers (and the TPs who love them)
Takin no flak from
frack-attack NRA
plushies
Takin no crap from
gumflappin’ Tea Party
Rushies
Dittoheads filled with…
(no, that’s not nice)
misinformation
Sleazy pols with vols
pandering to their meandering
with dolls from the intern pool
Pools they listen to
more than constituents
Consequently, their
incontinent pieholes spew
FOX from their boxes
(the Constitution gets the axe)
Rights only for the Right
We get what’s “left”
Two Rights can make a wrong
Look at the NeoCon bromances:
Bush and Dick
Incestuous Koch brothers
On and on, while our tap water
becomes flammable, we suck
dino juice like it’s a teat
Money for war? Sure!
Forget wind and solar –
our gas is now Natural
So natural, it seems
the hometown of my dreams
will go down in flames
from its faucets
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I’ve written about FRACKING before, but Sherry Blue Sky, a good friend and Canadian activist, produced an excellent report (click HERE) on how the frackers are taking over in Canada, too. Got my Irish up, but at least people rose up in protest… in the States, we think of Canada as a peaceful country, but their police have been learning since the Bush years and yes, through the Obama years: Rubber bullets in LaBatts country. What the hell is going on?
This is my cheery little Monday piece for the Open Link at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads! Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 
Sherry Blue Sky
Oh Amer, you so rock. I am still on a tangent – today my topic is sisterhood – global sisterhood. Love this piece and love “rubber bullets in LaBatts country.” Cackle.
Sharp Little Pencil
You were the inspiration, you know…
Laura Hegfield
Say it sister!!
Kay, Alberta, Canada
I used to think “end of the world” prophets were a little tetched in the head, but the end of the world is now imminent and it’s mankind causing it. Fracking is so frighteningly awful I can barely believe it. You’d thinking one instance of flaming tapwater would have shut down the whole process…but, no, it’s still happening, and still growing.
Scary to think we live in a world where people would let that happen, where their greed could, would, and will ruin the entire planet.
It’s no longer the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, it’s the very world in which we live that’s now in danger.
And don’t even let me get started on what global warming has done to the polar ice cap. (Sherry and I are a matched set, you know, Amy.)
K
Sharp Little Pencil
That makes three of us, although I live across the border in Wisconsin!
Your every word describes my stand as well. We may be past the “tipping point” at which the world could reverse its course. This may be in part because of oil man George W. Bush, who was convinced God wanted him to be president, who is a Fundamentalist who believes Jesus is coming any time now… So to hell with the planet, right?
Wish our president (who has been mired in Birther BS since he went into office by the Idiot Right who won’t admit it’s about race) was more proactive on alternative sources of power. He’s all wrong about fracking, and I’ve called the White House more than once to remind him! Amy
Ribbons Undone
I live in Arkansas and we have fracking here, too. For awhile, they were pushing the left over fracking water back into the ground and it caused earthquakes. As if the flaming water wasn’t bad enough AND we’re on a ginormous fault line. Fracking is the devil, ya’ll.
Sharp Little Pencil
Amen. There was an unprecedented quake on the East Coast, went from Toronto to Virginia and also put those cracks in the top of the Washington Monument, which is really a monument to the people who run everything, ha ha ha. Anyway, no one on the “Birther/Tea Party” side will admit the phenomenon.
Sharp Little Pencil
PS, welcome and thanks for commenting. Off to see your blog now!
http://vivinfrance.wordpress.com
I clicked like because I like your skill with words, exponential to the seriousness of the issue. But I don’t like what ‘they’ are doing to us and to our planet.
Sharp Little Pencil
I know what you mean about the “like” button. There are a lot of my poems that are hard to “like” because they are either political or dealing with mental illness, sexual abuse, and the like. I join you in your disappointment re: the world’s leaders.
grapeling
The engineering underlying fracking is astonishing in its complexity, scope, ingenuity, and skill. Unfortunately, most (though not all) firms employing the practice don’t incorporate into their cost-benefit analyses, the less immediately quantifiable consequences. These consequences then get borne by the populace at large, rather than the initial infractors. They’ve learned from the asbestos, coal, tobacco, auto, steel, and other industries to build into their planning a certain liability cost that is only a fraction of the final tally – lawyers, insurance, and friendly politicians will cover the remainder. When Genghis Khan ruled the steppes, it was forbidden to kill a family member or guest by spilling his or her blood. So no knives, arrows, cudgels, etc. Solution? Wrap the person in a rug and kick them to death, then transport the entire package away from the main yurt. There have always been loopholes…
Sharp Little Pencil
Didn’t know about Genghis Khan, but why am I not surprised?
Michael, you have obviously done your research, especially as pertains to cost and liability issues. I’m not as up on that aspect as I should be; I simply look at the cracked crown of the Washington Monument and know that the earthquake that shook the entire East Coast was caused by fracking on the Marcellus Shale, which also runs under my hometown – and Roger Green’s as well.
The saddest part is that, even if one owns property, the mineral rights are always up for sale and no one realizes it. Even if you have those rights, if all your neighbors sell out to frackers, your entire well may become contaminated.
My nephew was a fracker for a long while, but he got out of it and drove a TRUCK instead. That’s saying something, no? Peace, Amy
Helen
Love it .. love it when you tell things as they are! Brava! (not on WordPress, but would have clicked LIKE a million times)
Adrian Aidz Giannini
Kewl we are having similar issues here as the planet is raped to within an inch of its life and ours
brian miller
tell them amy….its an ugly greed which we perpetuate in our own guzzling of fuels…
vandana
We all need to look into these issues after all we have just one earth and we may in any country of the world, nature does not discriminate. This whole earth is one big home to us and it is our duty to care for it. Nice piece here.
Sharp Little Pencil
We do have one whole earth, but it’s Americans who are mainly causing the imbalance. Our multinationals raps rain forests for the diamonds underneath, cause oil spills in natural marine habitats – and generate more fossil fuel pollution than many other countries combine, the most in the world.
Would that your thoughts were implanted in the minds of every American politician! You’re a wise one, V.
margaret
Fracking – I’ve read both sides – still am confused about it as … who to believe? But why proceed so quickly if all is not known…. I’m sure the almighty $ has something to do with it, as always. (the rest I won’t comment on 🙂 Glad you are back.
Sharp Little Pencil
Margaret, I’ve read both sides, too – my nephew was a fracker for a long while. But when all was said and done, and there was an earthquake covering the East Coast from Canada to Virginia, including millions of dollars’ worth of damage to the Washington Monument while they were drilling in PA/NY’s Marcellus Shale, I had to question the validity of not only the frackers, but the administrators who ar4e supposedly watching them… since the corporate media didn’t even cover the earthquake much. Thanks, Amy
margaret
Oh, I remember that – it was felt here in NC where we live. It does make one wonder! I don’t know enough about it honestly to have a real opinion, but I wouldn’t want it going on around me… so, I guess I am more agains than for.
margaret
I’ve copied the link and will read it tomorrow.
Susan
You call it as it is in a tone of bursting anger held back too long. I cannot disagree. I’m actually feeling gleeful to be in an audience listening to phrases I could not say myself, though I mean them all the same. The day the fire comes out of my faucets is the day I totally flip.
Sharp Little Pencil
Don’t wait for YOUR faucet, Susan. Call your members of Congress right away!
L. Edgar Otto
I miss the old Canada as much the old USA,,, The issues are so important and I am limited in that we sometimes have to have a choice of metaphors- how beautiful the honeybee hive as a symbol of industry done right as well as I used it as a collective doomed to squander and rust… Can we not do our work right? Thanks for you support for my cares (if war is ever nobel unless to preserved the peace not rain fire on others for its own sake) my essay difficult to which even I read so many things we feel not right, cannot agree. Got that Irish up in you? well. in the dark ages the enclaves on Ireland’s shores kept civilization alive. Here in Wisconsin what are we to make of the new land ethic, Aldus and our Sandhills?
Sharp Little Pencil
Wisconsin already has a mouth-breathing, uninformed Koch puppet for a governor. I share you pain, living in Madison.
Roger Green
It’s such a clear cse of short-term profits that will lead to long-term disaster. In MY hometown, too!
Sharp Little Pencil
As Lex says, “Short-term gain, long-term pain.” Yeah, it’s a bummer for all of us who grew up in or near Binghamton. Andrew Cuomo is a schmuck for caving to fracker money and abandoning wind and solar.
Kathryn Dyche Dechairo
Very cleverly written and I love the term piehole, it always makes me giggle.
Sharp Little Pencil
Got it from Brits when I lived in Bermuda. It cracks me up, too!
Kerry O'Connor
Such an important issue – protests should be yelled from rooftops. Your poetry is always at its best when you are writing for a cause.
The Transcanada Poet
until we address suburban sprawl and the whole two SUV”s in the driveway syndrome… the world will need energy like a heroine addict needs a fix…Fracking might be an issue but it is not the root cause… great poem… 🙂
Sharp Little Pencil
Love your “addiction” comparison, it’s apt. PP say “I can’t live without…” a list of crap that is easily done without. It’s about simplifying life. I agree wtih you wholeheartedly, TransC. Amy
ihatepoetry
Oof! This was a quick, sharp jab in the collective eye! Perfect, my dear! Dino juice? Could it be that only those whose bodies will assimilate the dino juice will evolve to the next stage? I’m not willing to find out!
Sara v
Amy–Bullseye!! Two Rights can make a wrong–so full of wonderful wit and your signature sharp-eyed shooting (with words)–one of the many reasons I love ya! 🙂
Susie Clevenger (@wingsobutterfly)
You took on fracking and Right with both fists 🙂
Cosmos Cami
This has a fantastic rhythm to it.
kaykuala
It’s a question of big money against normal existence. The frackers sees their ideals and country-side broken up. The hard hearted entrepreneurs have none of that but handsome profits. Bound to result in flare-ups! It would be a long road for both sides! Great write Amy!
Hank
Mary
Amy, I appreciate your perspective!
Tony Maude
Shout it out loud, sister. Everything is about profit these days – but life is about so much more than that. Do these people think that all their dollars/pounds/euros will enable them to buy a new planet?
Gay Reiser Cannon
You said it and how! They’re fracking under my very house and the checks have stopped too. It never was but about about $30.00 a year. The ground shifts and the house cracks, and the foundation has had about as much as it can. Living in Texas I get the full dose – I voted against David Dewhurts who was dumber than the shrub GWB, and got in his stead the traitor Cruz. Yeah, that’s us electing bums who think with their own bums. It’s crazy and it’s home. Everyday I wish I had the power to resurrect my house and home and plop it down in somewhere else far, far, away. Thanks.
Björn Rudberg (brudberg)
So if we just gave up some comfort of driving.. and read more books… this would not be an issue… that can be right too… wonder when all went wrong…? Great piece of writing Amy
ayala
Clever write!