The failure to charge Trayvon Martin's killer shows racism is still endemic in the Southern states of the US

Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17 year old black boy, was shot dead by George Zimmerman, a latino member of an informal neighbourhood watch group in Florida earlier this month. Police and prosecutors in Florida have so far claimed there is insufficient evidence to charge Zimmerman with any crime.

Zimmerman phoned 911 to tell the police that he thought Martin was acting suspiciously (Martin had bought a drink and some sweets from a shop and was walking home). He says he followed Martin in his truck, got out of it when he couldn’t see where Martin had gone – and that Martin then jumped him from behind as he walked back to his truck and was punching him, leading Zimmerman to fear for his life, at which point he shot Martin twice in self-defence.

This story seems unlikely given that Zimmerman was an armed man, while Martin was an unarmed boy. The fact that Martin was 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighed 140 pounds, while Zimmerman is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds may make things marginally less clear cut.

Three witnesses – people who lived on the street Martin was killed on – say they heard what sounded like a boy crying in fear for help and begging for his life, followed by two shots.

While Zimmerman’s story sounds far fetched, some say a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law passed by the State of Florida would mean that if his story was true he could be argued to have been acting within the law.

The relevant section of the law reads ‘A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.’

However, looked at from Martin’s likely point of view, even if Zimmerman’s story was true, Martin might be the one who had the right to defend himself with any means he thought necessary if he thought his life was in danger – which he reasonably could when approached by a man who had been following him and who was armed with a gun.

The current and former members of the Florida state legislature who drafted the law say that Zimmerman can’t use it as a defence whether his version of events is true or not as he was told by the 911 operator that he did not need to follow Martin as police officers were on their way.

What is completely unacceptable about this case is that Florida police and prosecutors have so far refused to bring any charges against Zimmerman. Their claim that there’s insufficient evidence even to bring charges seems far fetched given the three witnesses who heard the events combined with phone call recordings of Zimmerman’s 911 call and Martin’s phone call to his girlfriend.

Zimmerman’s 911 call is on youtube here – at 1 minute 39 seconds he tells the operator ‘They always get away’. At one minute 52 seconds he can be heard saying “fucking coons”.

 It is inconceivable that if the dead boy was white or latino and the killer was black that the police would not have arrested and charged them by now. Unless Zimmerman is charged the message sent to Americans – and to the rest of the world – will be that the Southern states of the US have not really changed since the segregation and lynchings of black people by the Klu Klux Klan in the past – that twenty-first century America is still a country of white supremacists in which black people can be killed without consequences. If that message is sent, expect a big fall in tourism to Florida and the rest of the US.

George Zimmerman’s father Robert has claimed in interviews that there had been repeated burglaries by black youths in the neighbourhood – but he also claimed before the 911 recording was released that Zimmerman had never followed or confronted Martin at any point – something contradicted by his son’s own account to the 911 operator ; and even if there were these burglaries there was no justification for killing Trayvon, though Zimmerman also said in the 911 call that Martin was putting his hand to his waist-band and was holding something (this turned out to be a can of iced tea and a packet of skittles (sweets)).

Even if Zimmerman did believe Martin was a burglar ‘casing’ houses, as he suggested in the call, this would still mean Zimmerman is a dangerous man, prone to suspecting people based on little or nothing and to follow them armed with a gun which he is very willing to use.

For a comprehensive summary of the facts of the case and links to the various mainstream media in Florida and the US reporting them, see this link.

To sign the Martin family’s petition to the Florida police and legal authorities demanding that Zimmerman be charged and tried for Martin’s death click this link

Fracking Insane - scientific evidence shows fracking causes illness by contaminating water and air with methane gas and toxic chemicals

The only reports saying it doesn’t are funded by the companies involved in fracking

Fracking or ‘hydraulic fracturing’ for shale gas has been being carried out for decades in the US and has now been approved by the British Coalition government (including Lib Dem minister Chris Hune) in Lancashire, including near Blackpool and by the Scottish SNP government in Scotland near Dumfries – with plans for more elsewhere (1) – (2).

 This is either a major mistake due to governments being taken in by propaganda and supposedly objective scientific studies funded by the companies involved; or else they are selling out the people they're meant to represent.

Oil companies who want to carry out ‘fracking’ (hydraulic fracturing) for gas are constantly claiming that there is ‘no evidence’ that fracking causes pollution of ground water or drinking water and no evidence it causes illnesses due to chemical and methane gas poisoning.

That claim is completely false. There’s lots of evidence of methane gas pollution of drinking water and ground water caused by fracking, found over decades, right up to the present ; and some recent evidence of chemicals used in fracking polluting water supplies.

The Evidence that Fracking causes air and water pollution with methane gas and fracking chemicals and serious illness

There’s a 1987 US environmental Protection Agency report on methane pollution of water supplies due to fracking in the mid-1980s in the US (3).

Those details of that report were not publicised by the EPA at the time for the same reason that most investigations of the effects of fracking are withheld for decades in the US - because big companies involved in fracking threatened people with law suits and legal bills they couldn’t afford if they continued to mention it ; and offered massive pay outs for ‘sealed court’ settlements on the other hand.

There are also recent scientific studies of dozens of fracking operations which found that ‘In aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we document systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale-gas extraction.’ (4)

There are also studies from 1999 to the present showing levels of methane in well water in areas where fracking has taken place being vastly greater than in other areas – often high enough to cause explosions (5) – (7).

The US EPA has also recently found evidence of pollution of water in Wyoming with chemicals used in fracking there (8).

The documentary film ‘gasland’, which showed people made seriously ill by air and water pollution and tapwater which could be set on fire as a result of fracking, is constantly attacked as ‘propaganda’ and ‘unscientific’ by the oil and gas companies and their lawyers. In fact it is supported by all of the above scientific evidence; and the main critics of Gasland have been revealed as industry front groups – especially Energy in Depth, whose funders are all companies involved in fracking (9) – (10).

BBC reports from Pennsylvania show the same problem – tapwater so full of methane and other chemicals that it can be set on fire – as the Gasland documentary did , as well as the same serious illnesses among residents within days of fracking beginning, including barium poisoning (11).

Many of the supposedly objective scientific studies of fracking which claim there’s no evidence it pollutes water supplies are directly or indirectly funded by the oil and gas companies involved in fracking.

Even one of these studies (by the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh) admits that ‘Air pollution is another factor that must be taken into consideration. Near the end of the well development, there is a practice called flaring that is used to get rid of the waste gas that is not able to be used. The excess gas is essentially set ablaze, leaving flames spewing far into the sky, burning for days on end, and emitting a significant amount of noxious gases.’ (12)

The Swanson study quotes it’s ‘additional resources’ as including  another supposedly objective academic study ‘The Economic Impacts of the Marcellus Shale: Implications for New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia’ which was a study funded by the ‘Marcellus Shale Coalition’, which factcheck.org found is in fact a trade association of companies involved in fracking for gas in the US (13) – (15).

A look at the full members of the Marcellus Shale Coalition and the funders of Energy in Depth shows they are the same companies (16) – (17).

Reports by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette found the Universities of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania are among those who refuse to provide details on what departments and studies were funded by private companies, let alone which private companies; and that campus associations and other proxy groups of these universities are taking money from the oil and gas companies for fracking operations on land owned by the universities, giving their studies of fracking another source of bias and conflict of interest (18) – (19).

Unsurprisingly the Swanson report  ends with the standard (and false) industry line that ‘It is important to note that not one case of pollution due to hydraulic fracturing has ever been recorded, though there have been occurrences due to other stages of the drilling process’ (my emphasis) (20)

The second part of the sentence seems to be making a distinction which in practice reveals how dishonest the first part of the sentence is. It’s just a semantic trick - playing with words by pretending that the stage of the fracking process which causes methane gas or chemical pollution of water supplies makes any difference.

The costs of fracking vastly outweigh the benefits

What will the costs be in terms of polluting farmland and drinking water supplies if fracking is allowed to continue? What will the cost be to the NHS and in lives of making large numbers of people ill , requiring treatment and unable to work, from methane and chemical pollution of drinking water and air due to fracking? What will be the cost in lives as people start dying due to fracking pollution of air and water supplies? How can jobs for some justify illness and death for far more people?

Is the plan perhaps that the number of people who die will reduce the unemployment statistics in the long run and that any who become too ill to work in the meantime will be classed as disabled rather than unemployed?

Any local council or national government giving permission for fracking is failing to protect the health and lives of it’s own people and is opening itself up to legal action and massive costs in the future, plus the responsibility for allowing the illness and death of large numbers of people and pollution that may last long after any jobs provided by fracking are gone. We have other industries we can create jobs and provide energy with – wind power, wave power and tidal power.

The economic benefit of the jobs created will be cancelled out by the bill in illness, death and increased food costs as polluting ground water will also reduce food production by killing crops and animals.

With climate change increasing droughts and the spread of desert and water use draining acquifers and rivers to the point they can’t recover across the world from California to the Middle East, water may be the ‘blue gold’ of the twenty first century (21) – (23). Permanently polluting it for gas supplies that may last only a few decades is not wise either.

What You Can Do

In Scotland:

Email First Minister Alec Salmond on this address -  Alex.Salmond.msp@scottish.parliament.uk and the Scottish cabinet scottish.ministers@scotland.gsi.gov.uk citing the scientific evidence from the US that fracking causes air and water pollution and serious illnesses and asking them to ban fracking in Scotlandon those grounds .

Please also forward this email,  or send an email with a link to this blog post to everyone you know who might sign.

In Wales:

Email the First Minister carwyn.jones@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Please also forward this email,  or send an email with a link to this blog post to everyone you know who might sign.

In England or anywhere in the UK

Sign the  UK government e-peitition calling for total ban on fracking in the UK, and/or the petition for a moratorium until further study .

You can email Prime Minister David Cameron on this link or write to him by post on the address on this link.

You can email UK Energy Minister Chris Huhne at this address ps.chris.huhne@decc.gsi.gov.uk.

To contact your local councillor, MP, MSP or member of the London, Welsh or Northern Ireland Assemblies go to this link.

Support the campaign to get 38 degrees to start a campaign against fracking in Scotland, England and Wales – add a comment and give 3 votes to the suggestion (this is not vote rigging – 38 degrees allows people 7 votes on what campaign suggestions it should take up at any time).

Please also forward this email, or send an email with a link to this blog post, to everyone you know who might sign.

In the US

You can contact your elected representatives at any level of government through the contact details on this website , refer them to the studies showing fracking causes air and water pollution and serious illnesses and ask them to call for a ban on it.

There are also petitions you can sign up to including Save the Water Table’s petition to ban fracking.

Please also forward this email, or send an email with a link to this blog post, to everyone you know who might sign.

Sources

(1) = Guardian.co.uk 02 Nov 2011 ‘Fracking 'probable' cause of Lancashire quakes’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/02/fracking-cause-lancashire-quakes

(2) = Scotland on Sunday 05 Nov 2011 ‘Fracking’ for gas given the green light’,  http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/fracking_for_gas_given_the_green_light_1_1950654

(3) = US Environmental Protection Agency 1987 ‘Report to Congress – Management of Wastes from the Exploration, Development and Production of Crude Oil, Natural Gas and Geothermal Energy – Volume 1 of 3 – Oil and Gas’,http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html

(4) = Osborn, Stephen G et al (2011) ‘Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing’in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 17, 2011 vol. 108 no. 20 8172-8176http://www.pnas.org/content/108/20/8172.short

(5) = Holzman, DC (2011) ‘Methane Found in Well Water Near Fracking Sites’ in Environ Health Perspectives 119 (01 Jul 1999),http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.119-a289

(6) = AP 5/9/2011 ‘Methane in water near gas drilling sites, study finds’,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42964307/ns/us_news-environment/t/methane-water-near-gas-drilling-sites-study-finds/#.TuPXPHpU2uI

(7) = CNN money 10 May 2011 ‘Tainted drinking water found near gas wells’, http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/09/news/economy/natural_gas_fracking_duke/index.htm

(8) = Bloomberg 12 Dec 2011 ‘Wyoming’s Tainted Water Puts Pressure on EPA to Act on Gas Fracking’,http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-12/wyoming-s-tainted-water-pressures-epa-on-to-act-on-gas-fracking.html

(9) = http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

(10) = The Independent Petroleum Association of America 05 Jun 2009 ‘Hydraulic Fracturing under attack’,http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/HFUnderFire.pdf , ‘The "Energy In Depth" project would not be possible without the early financial commitments of: El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, IPAA, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.’

(11) = BBC news 28 Nov 2011 ‘How fracking affects a community in Pennsylvania’,  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15919248

(12) = Korey A. Kirker & Ryan N. Burger (2011) ‘JUST THE FRACKING FACTS’, Swanson School of Engineering 9 April 20011, University of Pittsburgh , Eleventh Annual Freshman Conference, http://region8water.colostate.edu/PDFs/1267.pdf

(13) = see (10) above)

(14) = Condisine, Timothy J et al (2011) ‘The Pennsylvania Marcellus Natural Gas Industry: Status, Economic Impacts, and Future Potential’, Pennsylvania State University College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering http://marcelluscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Final-2011-PA-Marcellus-Economic-Impacts.pdf , p ii ‘Acknowledgements The authors of this study acknowledge that the Marcellus Shale Coalition provided the funding for this study.’

(15) = Factcheck.org 14 Oct 2011 ‘Just the Fracking Facts’, http://www.factcheck.org/2011/10/just-the-fracking-facts/

(16) = Marcellus Shale Coalition – Full Members, http://marcelluscoalition.org/about/full-members/

(17) = See (10) above

(18) = Pittsburgh Post Gazette 07 Nov 2011 ‘Corporate funding of Marcellus Shale studies at universities raises alarms’http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11311/1188150-503.stm#ixzz1gApAdRyG  (details companies involved in fracking funding studies of fracking at American universities, some of whom refuse to provide details of who funds research – including Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh)

(19) = Pittsburg Post Gazette 06 Nov 2011 ‘Drilling on Campus: Marcellus Shale boom puts colleges at crossroads’, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11310/1187594-113.stm#ixzz1gB2BK1jO (details how students associations and campus groups in Pennsylvania university are selling drilling rights for fracking operations to companies on campus)

(20) = See (12) above

(21) = Reuters 14 Dec 2009 ‘California aquifers seen rapidly losing water’, http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/12/15/us-water-california-idUSTRE5BE0FP20091215

(22) = US geological survey ‘Groundwater depletion’, http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html

(23) = BBC News 06 Oct 2009 ‘Jordan faces up to water crisis’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8292228.stm

US and its allies continue to try to limit democratisation, not help it along

You may have got the impression that Egyptians are on the road to their first democratic elections now. Unfortunately there’s no guarantee that that’s going to happen. In fact the army are still co-operating with the dictatorship to try to crush any resistance and any demands for a transition to power sharing with the opposition before elections. When the focus of most of the media shifted to Libya the Egyptian army took the opportunity to clear Tahrir Square by shooting into the air, beating protesters and tasering them (1). When Egyptian protesters raided an Interior Ministry building to get files on who had been involved in torture,  Suleiman and the army responded the next day by shooting above their heads to keep them out, while also employing the plain clothes thugs stabbing people, attacking them with machetes and iron bars and throwing bricks – the same tactics used by Mubarak in the past (2) – (4).

None of this stops the US military aid flowing or Cameron from continuing to arm the Egyptian dictatorship. The Obama administration have never once even verbally backed the protesters against the dictatorship in their demands for a transition to a National Unity government including the opposition parties.

The Egyptian SSI secret police and their Tunisian equivalent have formally been abolished by court order (5) – (6). There remains the possibility that they will turn up under a different name, just as they did in Iraq. Bush claimed that “the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever” in his speech on the capture of Saddam (7).Yet Iraqis still face US trained police commandos and “counter terrorism unit” death squads using the same methods as Saddam’s forces, including pulling out nails with pliers, rape and electrocution (8) – (10).

The democratically elected Iraqi government also initially had unarmed demonstrators shot dead by the dozen when they protested against it recently, just like the dictatorships have. The killings have not been on the same scale as in Egypt or Libya so far and shooting protesters seems to have stopped for now, but they show Iraq after “regime change” is far from fully democratic. The Iraqi government has also used the tactics of Mubarak and his successors – hiring civilian thugs or plain clothes police to attack anti-government protesters with beatings, knives and bricks (11 – (13). So Iraq as a lot further from real democracy than Blair or Bush or their blind disciples would have you believe.

In Bahrain the country’s own military and police and Saudi and UAE troops are targeting protesters and medical staff with live fire, snipers and helicopters – just the same as Gaddafi’s forces have done in Libya, but with no calls for the Emir of Bahrain or the King of Saudi to be tried by the International Criminal Court.

This underlines the fact that western governments oppose Gaddafi’s dictatorship in Libya for the same reason they opposed Saddam’s – it doesn’t give them the profits and military bases they want from it. Most of the governments who are against any kind of intervention in Libya have motives just as selfish. Italy gets over 30% of it’s energy from Libya. Russia and China are in talks with Gaddafi on replacing former British, American and French oil and arms contracts with ones for their own companies.

The Libyan rebels are in the sad position of having no-one but foreign governments and militaries to call on for assistance if they want to avoid defeat. For that reason I’m for giving them the assistance they ask for – but make no mistake, the governments calling for intervention are not doing so for democracy or to save lives – and their involvement in Libya would be a double edged sword for the majority of Libyans.

Even in Tunisia and Egypt it’s a long way from decided whether they’ll end up democracies or new dictatorships or one party states. We know that with Ben Ali’s RCD party disbanded by court order and Ben Ali’s former Prime Minister Mohammed Gannouchi having been forced to resign by further protests, the US and French governments are seeking to ensure that prominent members of the RCD are absorbed into a new “centrist” party in order to attempt to ensure some continuity with the previous system (14) – (16). So, while this brings Tunisa closer to democratisation than Egypt, as in Egypt with US backing for Mubarak’s appointed successor Suleiman, the Obama administration’s priority is not to support democratisation, but to limit it.

The best that can be said of this is that past transitions to democracy, like those in Spain and Portugal in the 1970s, show that partial transitions to democracy in which members of the previous regime retain some influence, are more likely to succeed as the previous regime have less motive to carry out a counter-coup.

 (1) = Reuters/Guardian 26 Feb 2011 ‘Protesters say Egypt military used force to disperse them’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/26/protesters-egypt-military-used-force

(2) = guardian.co.uk 07 Mar 2011 ‘Egyptians prise open secrets of Hosni Mubarak's state security headquarter’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/egypt-state-security-mubarak-cairo

(3) = Al Jazeera Egypt Live Blog 6 Mar 2011, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/middle-east/egypt-live-blog-march-6

(4) = AFP 15 Mar 2011 ‘Egypt minister disbands feared security police’, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110315/wl_afp/egyptpoliticsunrestsecurity_20110315164128 ; Protesters stormed several state security buildings early this month to retrieve files kept on the population by the powerful regime apparatus long accused of human rights abuses. In one incident, hundreds of protesters outside the state security headquarters in Cairo were attacked by armed civilians, as the army fired warning shots and used sticks to disperse the crowd, prompting Washington to voice its concern.

(5) = AFP 15 Mar 2011 ‘Egypt minister disbands feared security police’, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110315/wl_afp/egyptpoliticsunrestsecurity_20110315164128

(6) = guardian.co.uk 07 Mar 2011 ‘Tunisia dissolves secret police to meet key demand of protesters’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/07/tunisia-abolishes-secret-police-force

(7) = White House – Office of the Press Secretary 14 Dec 2003 ‘President Bush Addresses Nation on the Capture of Saddam Hussein’, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031214-3.html

(8) = New York Times Magazine 01 May 2005 ‘The Way of the Commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

(9) = Shane Bauer ‘Iraq’s new death squad’ in The Nation 6th June 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/bauer

(10) = Amnesty International World Report 2010 (covering 2009) – Country Report Iraq,http://report2010.amnesty.org/sites/default/files/AIR2010_AZ_EN.pdf#page=123 ;(once pdf loads, scroll down to page 125 (by PDF page number) or 178 (number marked on page); ‘Iraqi security forces committed gross human rights violations including extrajudicial executions, torture...and did so largely with impunity....Torture methods reported included beatings with cables and hosepipes, suspension by the limbs for long periods...electric shocks to the genitals...breaking of limbs, removal of toenails with pliers and piercing the body with drills. Some detainees were alleged to have been raped….In May inmates of the womens’ prison in al Kadhimiya told members of the parliament’s human rights committee that they had been raped while held in prison or detained elsewhere’

(11) = AP 25 Feb 2011 ‘12 killed as Iraqis protest in 'Day of Rage'’,http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

(12) = guardian.co.uk 04 Mar 2011 ‘Baghdad protesters converge on Liberation Square’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/04/baghdad-protesters-iraq-driving-ban ; Security forces around Iraq clashed with protesters last Friday in the country's most widespread and violent demonstrations since a wave of unrest began to spread across the Middle East. At least 14 people were killed

(13) = HRW 25 Feb 2011 ‘Iraq: Open Immediate Inquiry Into Protester Deaths’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/25/iraq-open-immediate-inquiry-protester-deaths

(14) = guardian.co.uk 09 Mar 2011 ‘Tunisia dissolves ousted president's party’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/09/tunisia-dissolves-ousted-presidents-party

(15) = guardian.co.uk 27 Feb 2011 ‘Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi resigns amid unrest’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/27/tunisian-prime-minister-ghannouchi-resigns

(16) = guardian.co.uk 27 Feb 2011 ‘Tunisians know Ben Ali was not democracy's only block’,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/27/tunia-islamists-west-elections-role-politics ; ‘France and the US are thought to be pressing for the formation of a new centre party that will absorb leading members of the old ruling party, the RCD, and provide a good candidate for the presidency.’