Fracking Democracy: Gassing the American People
December 02, 2014
Fracking Democracy
Gassing the American People
by PHILLIP DOE
Gas warfare was invented and used by both sides during WWI. The French used it first. Eventually, mustard gas became the preferred method of mayhem. It had little smell, worked slowly, and terrorized the troops. Poison gas was the first instrument of war to be termed a weapon of mass destruction.
Gas warfare was outlawed in 1925, but the prohibition has been regularly disregarded by warring nations, including our own. Over the 4 years of WWI, casualties numbered over one million, with about 91,000 soldiers, less than 10 percent, dying directly. The long-term death count from later health complications is unknown.
Last year the World Health Organization said over 7 million people died from air pollution, making it the largest killer on the planet–killing almost 80 times more people in one year than died of poison gas over the 4 years of WWI.
But don’t expect a crisis call from the ruling class, for the source of this poison is overwhelmingly fossil fuels, and the owners of this wealth have bought the future, both here and across the globe with money and monopoly advertising. It is the reactionary’s siren call: “There is no alternative,” reformulated in the present case, as “Natural gas is our bridge fuel.”
This fabricated sense of inevitability, coupled with the industry’s propaganda machine dedicated to creating doubt about the science of climate change and public health consequences of fossil fuel dependency, is just dull witted enough to be embraced by the corporate press and the stasis seeking ruling class.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/02/gassing-the-american-people/