This page was last updated on August 10, 2010.
The time to protect our water is now; Bob Schmetzer; Beaver County Times; August 10, 2010.
I critiqued nine previous Schmetzer letters and they are usually broken records. A 2004 letter asserted Republicans were “driving Americans into the ground.” That letter claimed the GOP planned “to reflect their commitment to defend our homeland by reintroducing the draft in 2005” despite the fact Democrats were the only guys talking about reinstating the draft. Other letters resurrected the Cheney/Halliburton talking point, lobbied for VP Cheney’s impeachment, lobbied for surrender in Iraq, and blamed President Bush for a mine cave-in. Breaking the trend were letters lobbying for a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare system and another expressing panic at offshoring. One letter was nearly word-for-word plagiarism. The most recent previous letter I critiqued was entitled “Health plan would level playing field.”
The BC Democrats website used to list Robert Schmetzer as the local town chair for South Heights, but that page no longer exists as of this writing. Mr. Schmetzer is also “vice-president of PA 4th CD Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America.” The PDA-PA4 website is Beaver County Blue. Why doesn’t the Times mention these associations in an editor’s note when it publishes Mr. Schmetzer’s letters?
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“When the out-of-state workers from Texas and Oklahoma get done completely killing Pennsylvania’s water system, who will we blame?”
[RWC] Note the classic lefty tactic of forming groups and trying to pit us against them. In this case, Mr. Schmetzer pits “workers from Texas and Oklahoma” against Pennsylvanians. I don’t know the composition of the Marcellus gas drilling employees, but regardless of their permanent home their companies must comply with the same regulations.
“The time is now to remove all elected and appointed officials who will not live up to their oath of office.
“Article 1, Sec 27 of the state constitution grants the people rights to clean water, air and land. Their oath swears to obey and defend the constitution with fidelity.
“Demand it now, before it’s too late.”
[RWC] Translation: “The time is now to remove all elected and appointed officials who will not” refuse to allow harvesting of Marcellus natural gas under any circumstances.
“Don’t accept sludge for your drinking water.”
[RWC] As I’ve written previously, companies harvesting our natural resources must do so in a responsible manner and must have the financial and technological wherewithal to handle worst-case scenarios. It is government’s responsibility to enforce these rules and to make sure everyone involved [businesses and government (local, state, federal)] is prepared (via drills, for example) to execute disaster plans. That’s not what this letter is really about, however.
This letter is about the religion of manmade global warming. Knowing the manmade global warming myth is increasingly falling on deaf ears, followers of this faith are trying to use safety, water quality, etc. as backdoors to stop drilling and production of Marcellus natural gas. You can find other examples here and here. As this letter, a PDA-PA4 participant wrote the second example.