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Submission + - Anti-Fracking activist in Texas disassembles Gas company propaganda (blogspot.com)

Walkingshark writes: Adam Briggle, a key leader in the Texas anti-fracking movement, has been one of the pivotal figures in the historic total fracking ban proposed in the city of Denton. With the help of the rest of the leadership of Frack-Free Denton, a medium sized city in Texas stands to be one of the key battlegrounds in efforts to rebalance the property rights of mineral owners and home owners. Now that the petition is going to the voters in the fall, the Gas industry is opening up their pockets to flood the city with propaganda designed to misinform voters so that the referendum to ban fracking will fail. Briggle, on his Denton Drilling blog, has published an incredibly well reasoned and articulate takedown of their usual propaganda, a piece of writing that could end up serving as the template for how to completely demolish the poorly worded half truths often deployed by industry. Read it here and have a chuckle, Depantsing the Perryman Report about Denton’s Fracking Ban.

Comment I'm just going to re-quote this for emphasis: (Score 1) 222

I'm just going to re-quote this for emphasis:

The development of global finance rules under the guise of âtradeâ(TM) was the brainchild of senior executives of AIG, American Express, Citicorp and Merrill Lynch in the late 1970s. Their role, and subsequently a broader lobby called the Financial Leaders Group, is well documented. The former director of the WTOâ(TM)s services division himself acknowledged in 1997 that: âWithout the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services sector, particularly companies like American Express and Citicorp, there would have been no services agreementâ(TM).16

As the lobby evolved it was still led from Wall Street, but expanded to include the major insurance and banking institutions, investment banks and auxiliary financial services providers, from funds managers to credit-rating agencies and even the news agency Reuters. They were later joined by the e-finance and electronic payments industry, which includes credit, stored value and loyalty cards, ATM management, and payment systems operators like PayPal.

The industry lobbyists have also set the demands for financial services in TISA. The Chairman of the Board of the US Coalition of Service Industries is the Vice Chairman of the Institutional Clients Group at Citi. When the industryâ(TM)s demands, as expressed in the consultation on TISA conducted by the US Trade Representative in 2013, are matched against the leaked text it becomes clear that they stand to get most of what they asked for. Extracts from their submissions are listed at the end of this document.

Why is it OK for for private businesses to negotiate worldwide treaties, but not let citizens have any say in the treaty? They are both private entities, not the government. But somehow, the financial sector is given special privilege in this regard.

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Comment keeping the heat on (Score 4, Informative) 222

This thing is bad. It completely bypasses all the traditional controls of democracy. The people will have no say in it even tho its their money and lives. We need to keep the heat on this kind of thing just like SOPA only much, much more.... some good analysis and commentary over at Naked Capitalism these guys tell it like it is. Basically its looking like a global corporatocracy.

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