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Gas drilling and Marxism – any parallels?

Mary Ellen Denomy

Dear Editor,

Well, Mr. Moolick, it seems that when you cannot attack a message, you degrade the character of the individual who has found the oil and gas industry undesirable. Tweeti Blancett is a sixth-generation rancher in New Mexico and the campaign coordinator for George W. To hear you equate the ranching community with Karl Marx is a sacrilege. The Marx ideals are more in line with the philosophy of the industry.

The facts are that the oil and gas industry does not own the land or minerals that they are extracting. They leased the minerals from these ranchers for as little as $1 an acre.



They use the ranchers’ property, sometimes with no compensation. They contract out their workers and are not “responsible” for the workmen’s comp and behavior of the subcontracted personnel.

Communities must cover the cost of road destruction, community liaisons, enforcement and dust control.



The industry is making their income without investing anything for the materials to earn it: the land or the minerals. Is not the idea that the masses (the ranchers, landowners and mineral owners) contribute all they have for the betterment of the whole exactly what Karl Marx preached?

I would much rather stand with all of the ranchers in the community than any industry representatives. The long-time ranchers have worked with the sweat of their brow for hundreds of years to make Garfield County the wonderful place it is.

Mary Ellen Denomy

Rifle


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