Perceptions of Reality— And a Failure to Indict

by Walter Brasch

      She quietly walked into the classroom and stood there, just inside the door, against a wall.

      The professor, his back to her, continued his lecture, unaware of her presence until his students’ eyes began focusing upon her rather than him.

      “Yes?” he asked, turning to her. Just “Yes.” Nothing more.

      “You shouldn’t have done it,” she said peacefully. He was confused. So she said it again, this time a little louder.

      “Ma’am,” he began, but she cut him off. He tried to defuse the situation, but couldn’t reason with her. She pulled a gun from her purse and shot him, and then quickly left. He recovered immediately.

      It took less than a minute.

      The scene was yet another exercise in the professor’s newswriting class, this one unannounced but highly planned. His assignment was for the students to quickly write down everything they could about the incident. What happened. What was said. What she looked like. What she was wearing. Just the facts. Nothing more.

      Everyone got some of the information right, but no one got all the facts, even the ones they were absolutely positively sure they saw or heard correctly. And, most interestingly, the “gun” the visitor used and which the students either couldn’t identify or misidentified was in reality a . . . banana; a painted black banana, but a banana nevertheless. The actual gunshot was on tape on a hidden recorder activated by the professor.

      It was a lesson in observation and truth.

      Witnesses often get the facts wrong, unable to distinguish events happening on top of each other. Sometimes they even want to “help” the reporter and say what they think the reporter wants to hear.

      Reporters are society’s witnesses who record history by interviewing other witnesses, and they all make mistakes, not because they want to, but because everyone’s life experiences and perceptions fog reality. Put 10 reporters into a PTA meeting or court trial, and there will be 10 different stories.

      Of the infinite number of facts and observations that occur, reporters must select a few. Which few they select, which thousands they deliberately don’t select—and, more important—which parts they don’t even know exist—all make up news, usually written under deadline pressure. Thus, it isn’t unusual for readers to wonder how reporters could have been in the same meeting as they were since the published stories didn’t seem to reflect the reality of that meeting.

      It’s no different with witnesses to a shooting on a public street.

      Put 10 witnesses in the same area. All may get some common facts accurately. But, each witness sees the same scene different. It may be because they see it from different locations, from different perspectives, from different backgrounds.

      Now, place a police officer into the scene. And let’s assume the officer shot and killed an unarmed suspect, one he may have believed was posing an imminent threat to his life.  Now, let’s have the police officer testify before a grand jury as to what happened.

      What happened at the scene, and what the police officer later remembered may be different. The police officer may not have lied to the grand jury; he may have embedded into his own memory something different from what had happened—or why it happened—or how it happened. Time continually changes our perceptions of reality.

      Add in a prosecutor, because prosecutors are the ones who control grand juries. They are the ones who present evidence, call witnesses, and create the narrative the grand jury follows. There are no defense attorneys. There are no cross-examinations.

      In one city in America, a prosecutor chose his witnesses and how to question them.

      In one city in America, a 12-member grand jury—each with his or her own backgrounds and perceptions—listened to what was presented to them. They struggled to determine the facts, to try to reach a just verdict. And, after the prosecutor presented what he chose to present, that grand jury decided not to indict a police officer who shot and killed a suspect.

      A maxim of the way the law is practiced, not how it is written, is that if they wanted to, prosecutors could get grand juries to indict a ham sandwich.

      A maxim of life is that truth will eventually emerge—no matter how long it takes.

      [Walter Brasch has been a journalist more than four decades, covering everything from local service club luncheons to the Congress and the White House. For many of those years, he was also a professor of journalism. Dr. Brasch is the author of 20 books; his most recent one is Fracking Pennsylvania, an in-depth investigation of the effects of horizontal fracturing upon health and the environment, with special investigation of the relationships between politics and corporate business.]

How Americans Came to Oppose Fracking

by Walter Brasch

      For the first time since high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as nonconventional fracking, was developed, more Americans oppose it than support it.

      According to a national survey conducted by the independent non-partisan Pew Research Center, 47 percent of Americans oppose fracking, while 41 percent support it. This is a 7 percent decline in support from March 2013, and a 9 percent increase in opposition.

      The poll also reveals those who support fracking tend to be conservative men over 50 years old with only a high school education, and living in the South. However, support for fracking has decreased in all categories, while opposition has increased.

Fracking is the controversial method of drilling a bore hole into the earth’s crust as deep as 12,000 feet. The company sends fracking tubing, which has small explosive charges in it, to create a perforated lateral borehole, about 90 degrees from the vertical bore hole, which fractures the shale for up to about 6,000 feet to open channels and force out natural gas and fossil fuels. A mixture of proppants, toxic chemical additives, radioactive isotopes, and as much as 10 million gallons of fresh water are put into the tubes at a pressure of up to 15,000 pounds per square inch. About 650 of the 750 chemicals used in fracking operations are known carcinogens, according to a report filed with the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2011.

        Numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown environmental and public health dangers; other research reveals dangers because of the exploration, drilling, storage, wastewater disposal, and transportation parts related to fracking.

    According to the Pew survey, about 52 percent of men favor fracking; 40 percent oppose it. However, only 31 percent of women support fracking, while 54 percent oppose it. The remaining percentages are “don’t know” or “no opinion.”

    In geographical distribution, those opposed to fracking live in the Northeast (48 percent opposed; 37 percent in favor), Midwest (47–39 percent opposed), and West (54–38 percent opposed.) In the South, 45 percent favor fracking; 42 percent oppose it. The biggest shift from the March 2013 survey is in the Midwest. In that previous survey, 55 percent favored fracking, with a 16 percent drop in support in only 20 months.

    Among all Republicans, 62 percent favor fracking, a drop of 4 percent from the earlier survey. However, among Republicans, 68 percent of those who identify themselves as conservatives favor fracking, while only 52 percent of those who identify themselves as moderate or liberal Republicans support fracking.

    Among Democrats, 29 percent support fracking; 59 percent oppose it. About 33 percent of conservative and moderate Democrats support fracking; 54 percent oppose it. Among liberal Democrats, 67 percent oppose it, while only 25 percent support it.

    Support for fracking in all age groups has also fallen in the past two years; about half of all those under 50 oppose it, while only about 38 percent under age 50 support fracking. Even opposition to fracking among those 50+ has increased. By November of this year, 43 percent of those 50-64 (7 percent more than in 2013) and 40 percent of those 65+ (6 percent more than in 2013) oppose fracking.

    The biggest drops in support are among those who attended college. In March 2013, 45 percent of college graduates supported fracking; 20 months later, only 38 percent of college graduates support it. About 52 percent of all those with some college education supported fracking in March 2013; by November 2014, only 40 percent support it.

    To understand why there has been a shift in public attitudes about horizontal fracking, it’s important to understand the nature of the mass media.

    The mainstream establishment media are not in the forefront of society, but follow it—sometimes years behind emerging issues. In the past decade, the media at first didn’t cover fracking, perhaps because it was too complicated for reporters who weren’t trained in the sciences, perhaps because significant downsizing by publishers left fewer reporters to cover critical issues, perhaps because the media didn’t think fracking affected their own circulation and viewership areas.

    The first stories came from the oil and gas industry, and the establishment media accepted what was handed out to them. Thus, public perception was mostly from pro-fracking information.

    But, the people knew. They could see their roads being torn up by gas-industry trucks, sometimes more than 200 a day on rural roads. They could see acres of agricultural and forest land leveled for the access roads and well pads. They could hear around-the-clock noise from the trucks, well pads, and compressor stations. They could empathize with neighbors whose land was condemned by eminent domain so that pipes could be laid across and beneath private land.

    They learned about politicians who took campaign funds from the oil and gas industry and many front groups, and then crafted industry-friendly regulations to benefit those who fracked the land.

    They heard about the economic benefits of fracking, of how fracking would help the local unemployed find work in the deepest recession in decades; but, the high-paying technical jobs went to those from out of state who had experience on the rigs and well pads, did their jobs, and moved onto other out-of-state sites. 

    They were told about how natural gas was inexpensive, how it was better for the environment,  and how renewable energy was unproven and far too expensive for the average homeowner. But, they learned that it was the investors and fossil fuel executives who benefited, and how the process to capture the natural gas, with the flaring of methane, may be more dangerous to global warming than even coal emissions.

    At first, the few individuals cried into the winds. But, they came together to form small groups, and then larger groups. They read the environmental and public health studies. They heard from the people about the problems associated with fracking.

    They didn’t have the millions of dollars the industry had. They couldn’t afford full-page newspaper ads, radio and TV ad time, or the costs to design and produce 4-color flyers, innumerable mailers, and billboards.

    Theirs was a grassroots campaign. They went door-to-door, to their neighbors. They called their friends and strangers who might be affected by fracking.

    They attended flea markets, farmers’ markets, and community events. They went to city council meetings.

    They became adept at the use of social media. They produced black-and-white flyers and PowerPoint presentations. Some, using inexpensive digital technology, created micro- and mini-documentaries and posted them on YouTube. Others wrote letters to the editor, letters to their legislators, and articles and opinion columns for the alternative media. A few wrote articles for the establishment media; one developed a 107-minute documentary; others produced a feature-length film; several developed shorter films; one wrote a book.

    And, when they had to, they blocked and marched, non-violent acts they knew would attract some media attention. And they were willing to be arrested, charged with trespassing, and jailed o protect the people against an invasion of their environment.

    A few groups of a few residents became larger, now with memberships of environmentalists, scientists, physicians, social rights activists, landowners, and people whose lives and health were directly affected by fracking.

    Those who leased mineral rights to the gas companies, hoping to get some income to help survive the recession, soon realized the royalties were not as much as they were led to believe, and the land was not being restored to its previous condition, as was promised.

    Against heavy opposition from politicians and the fossil fuel industry, the people succeeded in getting more than 300 towns to enact moratoriums on fracking until, at least, the health and environmental effects were fully known. They had the passion for truth and not the lust for greed.

    Eventually, the establishment mass media caught up, running some syndicated stories about fracking, sometimes a local story, always careful to make sure the industry—with its carefully manicured PR staff and hordes of money—got a chance to respond to the masses of people.

    In March 2013, 48 percent of Americans favored fracking, 38 percent opposed it.

    In November 2014, only 41 percent favored fracking, and 47 percent opposed it.

    A social movement to protect the people’s health and their environment has begun to show the effectiveness of grassroots determination and the dissemination of truth, and not the propaganda of deceit.

     [Dr. Brasch, an award-winning journalist more than four decades, is the author of 20 books. His latest book, Fracking Pennsylvania, was the first book to explore fracking and its effects upon public health and the environment, as well as to discuss the truth of the economic impact and connections between politicians and the fossil fuel industry.]

      

Stripping Off Their Royalties

by Walter Brasch

      He’s there by 7 a.m. almost every Sunday except in late Fall and Winter to make money in one of the largest permanent flea markets in northeastern Pennsylvania. In three-foot long cardboard boxes he has an inventory of hundreds of paperbacks, all of them displayed spine up. Westerns. Romances. Adventures. Whatever you want. Three for a buck; fifty cents each. The books are virtually mint condition, and if you don’t mind reading something without a front cover, it’s a bargain, especially since paperbacks with the covers, sold at supermarkets, pharmacies, and bookstores, are now going for as much as $7.95 each.

      He isn’t the only one. There are thousands like him, although most don’t produce the sales volume he does. In flea markets and yard sales, individuals have bought what are known as “stripped books” from other flea markets and yard sales and sell them for pennies more; it’s just another way to make a few bucks.

      The only problem is that it’s illegal.

      The sale of stripped books is a significant and ongoing problem that involves fraud, possible copyright infringement, and some areas that take the crime into interstate commerce violations. However, police departments and prosecutors often don’t have the time, manpower, or resources to investigate and bring to court sellers of stripped books. To understand why the sale of stripped books is illegal, it’s important to know a little about the nature of book publishing. Although the major book chains usually buy books on the basis of a book’s cover and the promotion effort put out by the publisher, no one can predict which books will titillate American reading appetites, even with a $100,000 promotion campaign. So, publishers of the mass market paperbacks--the kind with colorfully-embossed titles superimposed over pirates and scantily-clad women on slick 4-1/4 by 6-3/4 inch covers--order large print quantities to try to saturate American bookstands. They sell these books to distributors for 55–65 percent of the list price—bookstores get 40 percent of that—and hope a few titles bring in enough profit to carry the rest of the line. 

      Unique in the field of retail sales, booksellers can return to publishers for full credit any books they can’t sell. However, publishers have no desire to pay shipping costs for books they probably won’t redistribute, especially since there are another couple of dozen titles they’re trying to push that month. And, neither bookseller nor publisher wants several skids of taxable inventory. So, distributors and publishers sign contracts that allow the bookseller to send only the cover back to the publisher, tack on shipping costs, and agree to destroy the rest of the book to prevent further sale.

      The bookseller usually sends stripped books to a recycler who picks them up at no cost and makes his money by selling recycled pulp.

      However, some booksellers “forget” to send some books to a debindery or recycler, either selling some in their own store or, more likely, selling books for pennies apiece to mini-distributors. But, even if the bookseller (who can be the owner of just about any kind of a business) plays by all the rules—and most major bookstores do—and sends the books to a recycler, that doesn’t mean the books don’t show up again. Some books may be stolen in transit or in storage; and, a few unscrupulous companies may file claims they have shredded 10 tons of what is now literally literary garbage, but have really gotten rid of just nine tons, throwing the coverless books into the streets, like left over food for the cats. The cats, in this case, have pick-ups, and pay for the leftovers.

      So, what’s really the problem? After all, even though these transient booksellers probably don’t pay taxes on their income, it’s hard enough these days to make a buck. And, certainly, it’s a break for the readers who are more likely to buy a 50-cent paperback than one costing 15 times as much.

      The problem is that when a reader buys a stripped paperback, the publisher and author don’t receive any money. Since there’s no income to the publisher, there’s also no income to the author who is usually paid 5 percent of the list price of mass market paperbacks. 

      Except for the few million-dollar deals that make the headlines every now and then, we authors don’t make a whole heap of money from our meager percentages. So every stripped or stolen book that’s sold means we get no money while a lot of people who had no part in the creative process are making money off of us. And, I really object to that.

      [Dr. Brasch, an award-winning journalist, has written 20 books. His latest is Fracking Pennsylvania, an overall look at the effects of fracking upon public health and the environment, with special focus upon the economics and politics of the practice.]

      

A Nation of Fear

by Walter Brasch

     Maintenance workers at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pa., airport shot and killed a bear and her three cubs.

     The bears had crawled under a perimeter fence and were just lying around, several hundred yards from a runway. The airport director claimed the bears might have posed a risk to flights. The mother bear weighed less than most pro football linemen. While the airport officials were worrying about what a bear and her cubs might do, they probably should have been worrying why that fence wasn’t secure. If bears could crawl under it, couldn’t drunks or terrorists also get into unauthorized areas of the airport?

     Earlier this year, the airport workers killed a bear who had gone onto a parking lot and climbed away from humans. The airport director also claimed the bear might have hurt someone. He claimed the reason the bears were not tranquilized was because his maintenance workers weren’t trained to tranquilize bears. He claimed the Game Commission possibly could not have gotten to the site fast enough to assist.

     The airport director also said it wasn’t the policy to publicize the killings, apparently in an attempt to keep the public ignorant of what the airport does to animals.

     A week later, about 30 miles away, near Catawissa, Pa., a Game Commission officer came onto private property and killed a baby raccoon that had posed no threat to anyone.

     The family had rescued the raccoon after her mother was killed by a car. The family bottle-fed the raccoon. They made a small hutch for the raccoon who often went into the woods. The family says they planned to release the animal when it was strong enough, according to reporter Julye Wemple.

     It didn’t matter to the Game Commission officer. Dixie had to be killed, he said. The animal might have rabies, he said. He refused to quarantine it. He refused to allow it to run back into the woods. He refused to allow the family to apply for a permit to keep the raccoon—the family didn’t realize they had to go through a paper jungle in order to do a humane act. At first, he even refused to take the animal away from the house to kill it. It was a final, desperate plea by the parents who didn’t want their four-year-old to see the murder.

     After the officer fired two shots into Dixie—the first didn’t kill her—he then cited the family for unlawful acts concerning the taking of furbearers. Maybe, the Game Commission officer thought his badge allowed him to kill rather than protect animals.

     The Game Commission officer’s inhumanity now allows every person to kill every animal on sight—just because it might have rabies. Maybe, it will attack us. Or, maybe, it’s just an annoyance.

     Fear is a dominant trait in our society.

     We buy .357 Magnums so we can blow away robbers—or in fear of neighbors who take short-cuts through our back yards at night. Or to murder people whose views are different from ours. Three recent high-profile cases revealed Whites killing Blacks because they might be dangerous.

     We fear ideas that aren’t what we believe, so we continue to ban books and whine about the National Endowment for the Arts, forgetting that our nation was founded upon a libertarian principle that all views should be heard.

     In a nation that seems to value appearance over intellect, a nation where there are no ugly anchors on TV, we are so afraid of not looking at least as well as anyone else that we spend billions for makeup to cover blemishes; we go to spas, gyms, and plastic surgeons to “tone up our flab” so no one scorns us for being fat. Augmentations to fill out. Liposuctions to reduce. Preparation H to shrink our wrinkles.

     We don’t hire the handicapped, the short, the tall, the fat, the skinny because they’re “different.” We fear and condemn gays, lesbians, and same-sex marriage, trying to justify our contempt and our fear as a voice from God. Some among us are anti-Semitic and racist, irrationally justifying their own pathetic existence.

     While proclaiming our individuality, we try our best to look, act, and think like everyone else, ’lest someone label us “different” or, worse, “radical.” We are so afraid of not being “cool” that we allow advertising to dictate what we wear, what we eat and drink, and even what we drive.
     We go to college because we’re afraid we won’t get a good job, and then spend 40 years on that job afraid to do anything different or creative, afraid to speak out for fear of displeasing someone who might discipline or fire us.
     We are so afraid that someone else will get something more than we have, so instead of fighting to get better wages and working conditions, we attack unions and public school teachers.

     We are afraid of the homeless because they look different, sometimes smell of booze, and sometimes even want to talk with us, to tell us about their lives and how they became homeless. We don’t want to hear that chatter. We have so many more important things to do—like go to our jobs so we can afford that nice mortgaged house and leased car.

     We condemn those who receive public assistance, whether disabled, elderly, or just a single unwed mother who made a mistake. We fear that every dollar they receive is one dollar less that we can spend on our own necessities and luxuries.

      We are afraid of children who escape Honduras, cross into Mexico, and then into the U.S. to seek asylum. They might be terrorists. They might take our welfare. They might want our jobs. For some on the far-right lunatic fringe, the solution is to kill those who cross our borders illegally. Why not just nuke Honduras and solve the problem entirely?

     We fear and condemn Arabs and Muslims, and plan to destroy their countries, because some of them are terrorists, not acknowledging that every ethnicity and religion has its own terrorists. For some, the solution is to launch pre-emptive strikes against—well, everything—just because something might happen.

     That which we don’t understand—or want to understand—we attack, leaving us condemned to an isolation of ignorance.

     Those who believe they are Christians often ask, “What would Jesus do?”

     Would Jesus want us to buy guns to kill people and animals? Would Jesus want us to ban books and ideas we don’t agree with? Would Jesus want us to concentrate upon appearance? Would Jesus want us to believe the half-truths of politics and corporate advertising? Would Jesus condone racism, sexism, Anti-Semitism, ageism, and homophobia? Would Jesus want us to condemn immigrants, children who are seeking asylum, and those who are the weakest and poorest of our society. Would Jesus want us to condemn those who live on communes or join unions? Would Jesus deliberately kill a mother bear and her cubs who didn’t threaten anyone? Would Jesus kill a baby raccoon who posed no threat? Would Jesus want us to live a life of fear?

     The answer is obvious.

     [Dr. Brasch’s current book is Fracking Pennsylvania, an overall look at the effects of fracking upon health, agriculture, and the environment.]