That is Josh Fox, director of Gasland the Movie, winner of multiple awards and worldwide acclaim, waving at you in the picture while giving a speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is a state where the Marcellus Shale drillers pump their poisonous fracking fluids in to Pennsylvania rivers.
In his speech Josh Fox uses examples from the Barnett Shale as a cautionary tale, mentioning Fort Worth and its 10,000 gas wells. Mentioning the cancer cluster in Flower Mound. Mentioning the people made sick by the toxins in the air in DISH, courtesy of the huge natural gas operations in that Texas town.
Josh Fox explains how using Civil Disobedience is often the way things get done in America. Using Civil Disobedience to right wrongs is actually one of the concepts the Founding Fathers built into the U.S. Constitution, what with Freedom of Speech, the Freedom to Assemble. And various other Freedoms, all of which were put there to allow a single citizen to stand up to the powers that be.
Or the corrupt status quo.
Watch the YouTube video below of the Josh Fox Pittsburgh speech and hear what Josh had to say about Fort Worth and other parts of Texas...
I turned on the TV to see what appeared to be a lot of agitated people. They were being agitated in Pittsburgh. Some of their agitation was due to getting hit with tear gas and pepper spray.
Apparently a few hundred malcontents were making their way from a Pittsburgh park, to the location of the G-20 Summit. President Obama touched down in Air Force One a few minutes ago. I don't know if he is off the plane yet. I turned the TV off before Barack got off.
The Pittsburgh Protesters are a mixed up group of groups with various causes. There is even a group of Buddhist monks among the tear gassed and pepper sprayed.
If the protesters are unable to disrupt the G-20 meeting, their plan, according to what I heard on MSNBC, is to go around town doing damage to businesses like Starbucks and McDonald's.
When I heard about the protesters going after Starbucks I remembered the Battle in Seattle. That Battle took place in November of 1999. If you'd asked me 3 hours ago where I was in November of 1999 I would have said I was in Washington. But I was in Texas when the Battle of Seattle took place, watching live on CNN and getting eye witness reports from people in Seattle, including a very panicked Wanda who was watching the Battle from high up in the AT & T tower. She watched in horror as her favorite Starbucks was destroyed. She was trapped in her building well into the night. Eventually police came to the rescue.
Realizing the Battle of Seattle took place in November of 1999 made me realize I moved to Texas in December of 1998, not 1999. Meaning I have been in exile here a year longer than I realized. I remember being up in Seattle a month after the Battle. There was still a lot of damage to be seen, but most of the mess had been fixed.
Watching the Battle in Seattle, from here, was one of my strangest experiences since I've been in Texas. Another happened in 2001 when I was watching CNN, around noon, when Breaking News said a big earthquake had struck the Northwest. CNN had footage of a panicked Bill Gates stopping in the middle of a speech, fires and a lot of damage. I remember calling people in the northwest and getting a message saying "an earthquake has struck the area you are calling, phone service is temporarily disabled." Or something like that.
Anyway, below is a YouTube video about the Battle in Seattle, the movie...
