Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: North Dakota explosion forgotten already now Walpole, Omaha, Mississippi, and many others also quickly fading into memory hole.

It wasn't that long ago that there was an explosion in North Dakota and there was a significant amount of news about; but it has quickly faded from the headlines and most people are almost certainly already forgetting about it.

Shortly after that there was an incident in Walpole Massachusetts where a fire broke out at a gas station and this received much less national attention but it is already fading from the local headlines. These smaller ones might seem less important but since they happen more often and get less attention that might be misleading. This was followed up by another explosion in Omaha and reports of many safety violations that should have warned people of the problem and polluted water in West Virginia.

If a couple of these incidents are still getting any coverage from the traditional media they will surely stop soon without much if any follow up.

As I began writing this the news reported another one in Mississippi.

When I Googled "explosion Mississippi," before I even found the article for it they gave me a long list of suggestions which led to even more explosions of a variety of types including some additional recent ones that I never even heard of as well as some that date back years and have been forgotten by most people assuming they heard of them at all. This is just Googling for one out of fifty states. It doesn't take long to find a long list of these if you Google them or look at an alternative media outlet like Earth First! Journal or other environmental news outlets with much fewer resources than the traditional commercial media. Without even looking very hard it doesn't take long to find a comparatively small sample of additional stories that clearly indicate that if I or anyone else took the time they could create a much bigger list of incidents that are only reported at the local level and quickly forgotten with little or no attempts to scale back the enormous amount of environmental damage that is taking place at an epidemic level.

If the enormous amount of environmental damage doesn't seem to be at an epidemic level to many people it is almost certainly because of the lack of comprehensive coverage that they're getting from higher profile media outlets.

They clearly have other priorities.

While these incidents get reported briefly and often only locally before they're forgotten the commercial media continues to sell an enormous amount of air time to oil, gas and coal companies to tell us about how safe their products are an how beneficial they are for us.

It isn't hard to find much more reliable and well sourced material that indicates that these propaganda ads don't stand up to the most basic amount of scrutiny; yet they're the ones that get repeated over and over again to the majority of the public.

Vladimir Lenin allegedly said "A lie told often enough becomes the truth;" this isn't quite true but it does successfully convince an enormous amount of people that it is true so more accurately perhaps it should be "A lie told often enough becomes the perceived truth."

The oil companies and media outlets selling ads seem to know this, whether or not the quote is from Lenin, and they're making an enormous amount of money selling their lies to the public.

Who is it that that really pays for all these propaganda ads? If oligarchies use their market power to pass on their expenses to their consumers wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude that the public is financing all the lies that are being told to them indirectly?

How could anyone doubt that? Well of course there are plenty of propagandists that would dispute this assumption or ridicule it; but do you think their claims will stand up to scrutiny?

Fortunately there are many more alternative news outlets that are covering them although many people still aren't aware of them yet; but they are having some degree of success calling for action including the following excerpt.

Speak Out! Stop Climate Suicide

As the death toll rises from the devastating typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, we know that our small world is connected. Scientists and climatologists continue to tell us that superstorms are made more likely, more severe and more frequent as warming oceans build the intensity of storms like Sandy and Haiyan. The Philippines Climate Change Commissioner gave an emotional message to the UN climate change talks now underway — one we should heed, even as we scramble to help the living. Complete article

I don't doubt that Climate Change is a major problem but it isn't the only one as people can see by looking at the long list of disasters that are mounting without proper coverage; and many of these are much simpler and easier to see that they're a serious problem, unlike Climate Change which can be more confusing for people to understand. Or at least it would be easy to recognize the problem if they reported on it properly but the commercial medias quickly forgets things and moves on to the next obsession du jour without much if any follow up on how to address problems.

Fortunately as reported by "Earth First! Journal" many of these protest have begun to achieve some successes especially at the local level but they aren't being reported by the traditional press anymore than the full extent of the damage. If more people knew that they could make a difference they might try more and reform things even more.

I suppose this could interfere with the short term profits of the commercial media and their advertisers which might have something to do with why they don't report on them.

Susan Clark and Woden Teachout authors of "Slow Democracy" also wrote about how many communities have made a difference although they have had problems including a Pennsylvania attorney general who sued one of these towns that imposed stricter protection rights than the state or federal level claiming that, “There is no inalienable right to local self-government." Fortunately most of these ordinances go unchallenged in courts since corporations find it easier to go elsewhere and on top of that if they went to court they would have to make a case against democratic self government and environmental protection and this could be a public relations disaster even if the commercial press ignores it since it would add one more thing they don't report and they would lose more credibility to the alternative outlets.

They might have a good case if they were arguing that the people have "no inalienable right to local self-government" because they're using it to suppress the civil rights of a minority like they did in the fifties and sixties but under the current circumstances it might sound like the profits of corporations are more important than the health and even lives of the majority of the public.

Actually if people reviewed the materiel that is already available, mostly from alternative outlets, or scattered in the traditional press where it is hard to find, our government and corporations are acting as if the profits for their campaign contributors are much more important than the health and lives of the majority of the public especially from those that have the least amount of political power.

Regardless of what the Pennsylvania attorney general and other defenders of corporations want The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and a growing number of towns are making a stronger case for an inalienable right to local self-government, assuming it isn't used to suppress peoples civil rights, and if more people knew about it then it would be much more difficult for corporations to profit off of negligible mass murder through environmental destruction. I don't consider it an exaggeration at all to refer to this as "negligible mass murder" since there is an enormous amount of evidence to support this claim if people look at it, including some of the deaths that are directly related to many of these explosions and many more that are related to the environmental destruction that increases diseases and kills people in slower ways that propagandists and lawyers can cover up especially with the help of corporate financed "research" which investigators like Bill McKibben and Lawrence Lessig have exposed as biased if not out right fraudulent.

To add insult to injury many of these people have limited access to affordable health care despite the name of Obama's misleading bill; partly due to the fact that insurance companies use a large portion of the money they get from premiums on political purposes, bureaucratic expenses and advertising instead of going towards health care, not to mention their excessive profits which should be considered the result of an extortionary system.

The next thing you know our lawmakers will start claiming that peaceful protesters that want to prevent the destruction of our environment are "terrorists."

Actually that has already happened.

The following are a relatively small percentage of the disasters that have been happening. If I continue searching "explosion Mississippi," or some other states or countries I could and might add many more and I still won't expect to find more than a miniscule fraction of the total.

Oil Train Derails Causing Explosions, Hazmat Incident in North Dakota

Breaking: BNSF Crude Oil Train Explosion

Officials Urging Evacuation of 2,400 Residents Near Oil Train Derailment