The Pipeline Manifesto

I’ve always wanted to write a manifesto.  The very word “manifesto” sounds important and revolutionary.  So here is my first manifesto, entitled “The Pipeline Manifesto.”

We home owners and farmers are annoyances standing in the path of the PennEast pipeline.  PennEast wishes we were gone.  That’s why wherever possible the pipeline runs though state parks and state gamelands.  The trees, animals, and birds in those areas will not complain, so they can be disrupted, ignored, or eliminated.  Human impediments are more of a problem.

People, of course, can also be disrupted, but we must be dealt with.  We are fed a lunch at the Flagstaff.  We are sent slick brochures.  We are given maps impossible to read.  We are told it is our patriotic duty to allow the pipeline to bring fracking gas across our land.  We are told we are standing in the way of jobs, prosperity, and the economic well-being of our fellow citizens.

If we still object to the pipeline in spite of this barrage it won’t matter; we can be forced to cede the rights to our land even though the profits do not flow into the U.S. treasury.  The gas will not be available to citizens on a non-profit basis.

Of course not.  Profits from this gas pipeline will go into the coffers of multi-billion dollar companies whose executives help to fund the campaigns of politicians who write the policies that govern pipeline company rights.

The only way to stop this unholy alliance of federal authority and corporate greed is by a nationwide grass-roots movement that rises up and demands, “NO MORE.”  

It will take a long time and a hard effort.  Let’s get started.