"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive?. I like a little rebellion now and then." -Thomas Jefferson

Drawing upon this nation’s Declaration of Independence as inspiration, Dr. J. Stephen Cleghorn, co-founder of the 50-acre Paradise Gardens and Farm organic farm that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, is holding a press conference to declare—in defiance of any established laws which say otherwise—that his farm shall never be violated from above or below by unconventional shale gas drilling. He will seal his declaration upon the scattering of ashes that are all that is left of the farm’s co-founder, his late wife Dr. Lucinda Hart-González, who died of cancer in November 2011.

“May her ashes,” he will say as he drops them to the ground below, “declare this farm forever inviolate of any attack upon it as a living system. Her blessed ashes hereby declare a new right of love at the surface and forever below this farm that no gas drill may ever penetrate.”

WHO: Dr. Cleghorn will be joined by grassroots activists who oppose shale gas drilling from the Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air (PACWA), Marcellus Protest, Protecting Our Waters and several others. Also invited: Senator Joseph Scarnati, Speaker Sam Smith, J. Brett Harvey (CEO of CONSOL Energy), Douglas H. Miller (CEO of EXCO Resources) and Larry and Maxine Burkett of Punxsutawney, who hold the deed to the gas rights under the farm.

In the wake of the resignation of a high-ranking U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official who used the word “crucify” to describe his philosophy of enforcement against polluters, other agency officials are determined not to make further utterances that could offend the oil and gas sector and other polluting industries. In fact, the agency is going out of its way to sing natural gas’ praises.

Speaking May 1 at a conference on the health effects of shale gas drilling, Bob Perciasepe, the EPA’s deputy administrator and the nation’s second-ranking environmental official, repeatedly said natural gas is going to play a significant role in the nation’s energy future. He touted the fact that U.S. oil and gas production has increased since President Obama took office in 2009.

Perciasepe also discounted arguments that the nation can have either a strong economy or environmental protection, but not both. “Our primary view on this is that it is a false debate,” he said. “Simultaneously, we can do environmental protection and have economic growth.”

With the ability to extract large volumes of natural gas locked in shale rock formations, the United States has an opportunity to be “that innovative shining light for energy development,” he proclaimed.

By Will Potter

As the Occupy movement carries out massive May Day protests around the country, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task force is trumpeting the arrest of “self-proclaimed anarchists” and “terrorists” who allegedly conspired to destroy a bridge in Ohio. Integral to the development and advancement of this plot, however, were FBI agents themselves and an informant with a drug and robbery record.

Douglas L. Wright, 26; Brandon L. Baxter, 20; and Anthony Hayne, 35, Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23, were arrested by the FBI on April 30, just in time to make the announcement as the nation turns its attention to May Day protests.

The affidavit reveals a plot by the FBI that continues a pattern of behavior in “terrorism” investigations against political activists. Most importantly, undercover FBI agents helped shape the “plot,” offered advice on how and where to use explosives, and allegedly sold explosives to the activists.

Not many people know why May Day became International Workers Day and why we should still celebrate it. It all began more than 125 years ago when the American Federation of Labor adopted an historic resolution which asserted that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886".

In the months prior to this date workers in there thousands were drawn into the struggle for the shorter day. Skilled and unskilled, black and white, men and women, native and immigrant were all becoming involved.

Chicago

In Chicago alone 400,000 were out on strike. A newspaper of that city reported that “no smoke curled up from the tall chimneys of the factories and mills, and things had assumed a Sabbath-like appearance”. This was the main center of the agitation, and here the anarchists were in the forefront of the labor movement. It was to no small extent due to their activities that Chicago became an outstanding trade union center and made the biggest contribution to the eight-hour movement.

“The areas of the United States having the highest levels of long‐term poverty, outside of those having a history of racial inequalities, tend to be found in the very places that were once the site of thriving extractive industries.” -William R. Freudenburg

The fracking debate isn’t only about the environmental damage. The economic and social impacts of shale gas drilling also are proving divisive in state houses and communities located above natural gas fields across the country.

In Pennsylvania, residents who live in counties with the heaviest shale gas industry activity are experiencing an increase in social conflict, Timothy Kelsey Ph.D., professor of agricultural economics at Pennsylvania State University, said at an April 30 conference on the health impacts of shale gas extraction. The conference, held in Washington, D.C., was sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

Communities “are becoming more polarized” between those residents for and against drilling in the Marcellus Shale, Kelsey said. Part of the conflict is between “the haves and the have-nots”—landowners who received relative pennies from gas companies to lease their land and those who struck more lucrative deals, he said.

“Today, Afghanistan and the U.S. initialed and locked the text of the strategic partnership agreement,” said Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi. “This means the text is closed…”

Why “lock” or “close” the future of Afghanistan to 30 million ordinary Afghan citizens?

While the world may accept that the U.S. and Afghan governments have some “state” or “noble” considerations for not revealing the contents of the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement, how about the democratic consideration of involving Afghans in their own future?

Even the Afghan Parliament was in the dark and uninvolved until they were recently given a peek when Afghanistan’s National Security Advisor, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, read “portions” of the Agreement to assembled parliamentarians on 23rd April, saying that the U.S. will defend Afghanistan from any outside interference via “diplomatic means, political means, economic means and even military means.”

During a two-week period this summer, radical environmentalists will be spreading their message of resistance to industrial capitalism to an area of the country that they hope will prove a fertile recruiting ground. Instead of preaching to the converted in historically friendly communities across the western United States, Deep Green Resistance is heading to the Southeast, where the ruling elite has never hesitated to subsidize a nuclear power plant project or clamp down on a trade union organizing effort.

A traveling group of DGR activists will be touring seven Southeast cities in what the group’s organizers are calling the “Culture of Resistance Roadshow.” At each stop of the tour, there will be music, art and informative presentations that DGR hopes will give activists the tools they need to make a difference in the struggle for a livable future.

The tour kicks off in Miami on June 16 and then makes its last stop in Washington, D.C., on June 30. In between, the traveling roadshow will visit Gainesville, Fla., on June 18, Asheville, N.C., on June 22, Chapel Hill, N.C., on June 23, Knoxville, Tenn., on June 25, and Richmond, Va., on June 27.

"What are you rebelling against?”

“Whaddya got?"

-From the 1953 movie, “The Wild One"

It’s no accident that “the system”—this dominant and destructive culture of ours—makes us feel so damn alone, makes us feel like we can’t make a difference, like we can’t “fight City Hall.”

The nature of top-down rule, of course, is to leave those on the bottom throwing up their hands in resignation, heaving a collective sigh, and concluding: Whaddya gonna do?

I’ll let you in a secret or three: We are not alone, we can make a difference, and what we’re “gonna do” is occupy a goddamned strike on May 1.

Pennsylvania’s noxious new natural gas law, Act 13, has received a fair amount of press attention, much of it negative. In drafting the legislation, state lawmakers gave the shale gas industry everything it wanted, including the right to drill almost anywhere and full protection from local ordinances.

The law, which took effect April 14, contains many sordid provisions. To help people understand the new law, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, or PennFuture, has released a handy guide to all of the favors and loopholes for the gas companies that Act 13 provides. PennFuture, an environmental advocacy group that supports natural gas drilling as long as it is regulated properly, said the guide was “deliberately written to be as accessible as possible to all, primarily presented in a question-and-answer format.”

“Since this law was signed, there has been a great deal of confusion about the various provisions,” George Jugovic Jr., president and CEO of PennFuture, said in an April 23 statement. “This plain language report separates rumor from fact, and will help elected officials, public health officers and physicians, and citizens in and out of the drilling fields understand their rights in terms of drilling.”

Straight from reservoirs in upstate NY, New York City’s tap water, long considered some of the cleanest and purest in the country—not to mention UNFILTERED—is at risk of becoming permanently contaminated.

The PSA “ANYBODY of WATER,” by I AM PICTURES in association with I HEART H2O raises awareness about the threats facing New York’s water, so that New Yorkers can take action to protect it immediately.

Over the past decade the global demand for energy has increased exponentially.

Diminishing supplies of conventional fuels such as coal and oil, as well as growing scientific consensus and public awareness about the environmental hazards of the extraction of such fuels has led to the search for alternate ways to power our country. Recently, the natural gas (methane) found in large quantities in deep underground formations of shale in vast areas of the United States has become the go-to power source to profitably replace US dependence on coal and foreign oil.