Frack Whack: Jobs for Both, Right Here

Range Resources is running a propoganda public education campaign on local billboards and websites containing images of diverse children, titles of desirable jobs, and the promise that these jobs will be available. In the future. Right here. Just get out of the way and let them do their thing. Good jobs for your grandkids. You got a problem?



You could go to their website: Range Resources: Jobs For Generations to see the flash movie (which is just awesome, it touched me down deep) or to read the inspiring text:

At one time, parents in Pennsylvania could watch their children grow up and pursue the career of their choice right here at home. That hasn't been the case for many decades now, but opportunity is returning to our state and jobs related to natural gas drilling are leading the way. Soon new industries will come here to take advantage of our newfound, affordable energy, bringing even more jobs. Before long there will be almost unlimited career choices in Pennsylvania. Best of all, it’s a trend that could last 100 years or longer. That’s good news for our children, our grandchildren … and even their children.

When I was a kid there was a preacher named Rev. Ike Eikerenkoetter II but known as Rev. Ike, an evangelist who used to pack armories and the old Madison Square Garden, the Pat Robertson of his day. The Rev. Ike's newspaper ads were a marvel to me and they used the headline, "You can talk all you want about the pie in the sky and the sweet bye and bye, but what about the good ol' now and now?!" (There is a Joe Hill verse that uses the same phrase. Also, read Pittsburgh's Tony Norman on Ike's death).

I have always appreciated the Rev. Ike for his contribution to my awareness, the identification of the transaction type (some call it swindle) that involves my pain now, your profit now, and my longterm profit; and whenever anybody promises me future/downstream ethereal benefits coupled with immediate and allegedly transitory pain and loss for me coupled with profits for them, I think fondly of the Rev. Ike. He taught me some lessons.

I don't think Range Resources would like Ike; their ad campaign is all soft promises in the bye-and-bye - your children will have great jobs here with... somebody... later on! while in the now-and-now, your water is flammable, your kids have migraines, your land is worthless, and they've cut down all your trees. Sorry about the earthquakes.

The best thing about being the target of a propaganda campaign, is knowing that you're the target of a propaganda campaign.

This blog will support Range Resource's public education campaign with supplemental material. Our first contributions: