By Nicole Houck, Contributing Writer
While ‘civility in discourse’ is a complex and nuanced goal, a few areas of universal agreement have emerged in recent months. One such point of consensus is this: don’t compare your political opponents to Nazis.
Ted Borawski, chief oil and gas geologist with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, is catching a lot of flak for his comments concerning the documentary ‘Gasland.’ Borawski likened the Oscar-nominated film to that of Nazi propaganda.
“Joseph Goebbels would have been proud. He would have given him the Nazi Award. That, in my opinion, was a beautiful piece of propaganda,” Borawski told 50 members of the Pennsylvania Dutch Chapter of the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters Society. The speech was covered by the Lancaster New Era.
Borawski has worked at DCNR at least since Governor Rendell’s tenure. This picture comes from May 2009, when Borawski was among several DCNR employees who won recognition for their success at leasing state land for oil and gas development.
Leading the response is State Representative Josh Shapiro, who authored a letter to the Corbett administration demanding an apology from Borawski.
“While I recognize there may be differing opinions of that documentary, there is absolutely no place in society–let alone in the Corbett Administration–for such insensitive and ignorant rhetoric. I don’t know Mr. Borawski or his relationship to the new Governor, but as a member of the state House, I ask that the Governor immediately condemn Mr. Borawski’s comment and take appropriate action against him. There is plenty of room in the public discourse for people to disagree, but there is no room for a senior government official to compare someone to a Nazi just because they have different views,” Shapiro’s letter reads.
Shapiro is Jewish, and is currently running for Montgomery County Commissioner. He is also rumored to be looking at a challenge to Corbett in the 2014 campaign for governor.
‘Gasland’ director Josh Fox said he wants Borawski fired for the comments, and that his father and grandparents were holocaust survivors.
“Does this guy even know what a Nazi is?” Fox asked. “Does he know what they did? I can’t even describe how wrong this is.”
Kudos to the folks at PhillyClout for their solid coverage of this developing story.
Keegan Gibson contributed to this report.
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2 Responses
On July 13, 2011, I picked up Josh Fox in my taxi and took him to Denver International Airport. He told me his name was Roma. Josh tried to pay the cab fare with a credit card in yet a third name. The card was declined and Josh bolted from my cab into the airport. I was not paid for the $34.00 cab fare. In Colorado non-payment of the cab fare is considered theft. Josh Fox is a liar and a thief.
Success at leasing OUR forests for destruction to profit the corporations and continue the plundering of OUR resources. Lovely.
This administration doeasn’t even pretend that it isn’t totally bought and paid for by the gas drillers and their buddies.
Can’t wait til Mr. Walker is in charge of all permitting with a mandate from Tom to ignore all laws and regulations thst might inconvenience our corporate overlords…