The frontier has always been about development. Most of the original settlers of the so-called "Wild West" came not because they wanted a life free from civilization, but because they wanted to bring development to land that had lain unused by non-native people. Far from being the embodying the independent, rugged ideal of the frontier, the people we see in Gasland are part of 150 years of the U.S. federal government trying to establish and maintain its sovereignty on land that it did not effectively control for much of the past 230 years.
Through the fracking debate, we see the conflict between the rhetoric used to justify expansion - lofty talk of individualism, independence, liberty and nature - and the true motives behind the settling of the West - profit. To a certain extent, I think the sad fact of the matter is that the people whose water is being poisoned are just pawns in a larger political and economic game, and that the system that we have in this country is optimized to ensure the best outcomes for the wealthy and well-connected, and the vaunted American Cultural Values are just ideas used to justify continuing the system to the vast majority of the population, who would otherwise be outraged by the allocation of resources.
Actually, that's probably too cynical.
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