Uprising Against Oil & Gas Drilling Intensifies In the West

ST. LOUIS - The St. Louis archway, which I visited yesterday, may bill itself as the gateway to the West, but the real gateway this election to the West for Democrats could be through oil and gas politics.

A few weeks back, I wrote a New York Times magazine story on the prairie populist backlash to unbridled oil and gas drilling in key swing regions of the Rocky Mountain West that could be decisive in the upcoming presidential and congressional elections. This is a big theme in my book, THE UPRISING.

Today, Democracy Now! has something of a follow-up report, looking more deeply at just how much drilling is going on. Goodman's report coincides with the raucous fight in Colorado to tighten rules regulating oil and gas drilling.

Goodman is a great journalist, and though her show is often ignored in the blogosphere, it is an essential part of the growing progressive media infrastructure (and I differentiate the progressive media infrastructure from the partisan media noise machine). She was kind enough to have me on her show a few weeks back - and this report on the politics of oil and gas is terrific.

Check out Goodman's report - it offers more examples of local conservative constituencies fighting back against the national Republican Party's efforts to turn the Rocky Mountain region into an energy colony. If Democrats stand tall against the right's "drill at all cost" mantra, they could indeed win over a wide swath of independent and GOP voters who know the gas price profiteering crisis we face has nothing to do with a crude oil supply shortage - and that the "drill" mantra is a slogan to help pad oil industry profits.

This is an ongoing series from the national tour for THE UPRISING. You can order The Uprising at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore.