Community | August 21, 2009 | 9 comments

'Energy Citizens' events are really astroturf "energy employees" rallies, sound familiar?

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/texas-and-new-mexico-ener_b_264610.html

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WakeUpPeople
Oil industry employees continued their ‘Energy Citizens’ tour today in conservative towns in New Mexico, after holding a “glorified company picnic” in Houston on Tuesday. Local New Mexico blog FBIHOP reports that the API/NAM/Chamber of Commerce/FreedomWorks/Big Oil astroturf rallies will take place today in Roswell and tomorrow in Farmington -- “they will hold their meetings before going out and claiming these were grassroots efforts.”

NMFBIHOP aptly called the Houston Astroturf event an "energy employees rally," a more fitting description of the closed door event that drew somewhere between 2,500-3,500 oil industry employees who were bussed in and given yellow ‘Energy Citizen’ t-shirts in “another high-priced photo op for the oil and gas industry.”

Today’s event in Roswell was reportedly organized by the DW Turner PR firm, which represents BP and Chevron. Chevron played a central role in the Houston rally as well, bussing in hundreds of employees to take part in the “company picnic.” Spokesman Morgan Crinklaw told the San Francisco Chronicle that Chevron "plans to offer the same opportunity to employees to participate in events taking place near our Farmington, N.M., and Anchorage, Alaska, offices."

The oil industry is paying its employees to go to these events, claiming that they are “grassroots,” when nothing could be further from the truth. If you live in one of the cities below where these ‘Energy Citizen’ rallies are taking place in the next few weeks, show up with your video cameras and ask questions, like: "Do you know why you're here today?" Or "Are you here because your boss made you come?" If media are at the event, be sure to urge them to report these events as fake astroturf events organized by oil companies.
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9 comments // 'Energy Citizens' events are really astroturf "energy employees" rallies, sound familiar?

  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • People on both sides of the political aisle have now made this a poltically partisan issue which will be its death knell. And giving attention to these as^es doesn't help either. It is the same with the healthcare astroturfing and others events. It is always the political partisans who can't wait to post about their crap to give these idiots attention. THAT is what they want. To divert you once again into doing nothing but arguing with them over science that is settled instead of divulging the facts to people.

      Instead of posting about these as^es and giving them attention, how about organizing a week of faxes and phonecalls to the Senate in a relentless march about strengthening the climate bill in the Senate now until their phones and faxes go down and telling THEM that it will only get louder the longer they listen to the oil companies responsible for the pollution killing our sustainability? Where is the energy for actually using facts to take action? Debating these neanderthals gets us nowhere and only brings us back to square one. DON'T LET THEM MAKE YOU take your eye off the prize.

      I will honestly and with all due respect vote down any thread I see that gives these as^es the attention and political diversion they are looking for because I am sick of them and because well, THEY ARE WRONG and that has already been established MANY times. Anthropogenic climate change is real and happening right now. THEY aren't even worth taking time to debate this any longer. We need SOLUTIONS and ACTION, not DIVERSION. And sorry if this came off as rude, but we really don't have time for this.

    • 2 years ago
  • ajiacoysancocho
  • artemis6
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • Talk about real astroturf with a twist, thank Ma for that; your story really puts this whole thing in perspective. Oh the irony.

    • 2 years ago
  • maof4brats
    • 0
      maof4brats [removed]  

    • I put in astro turf about 6 months ago and the city is paying for 60 percent plus tax credits because I live in the desert of northern California, I have the turf in my back yard only i just couldn't stand the fact for our front.

    • 2 years ago
  • Progresshiv
  • kennymotown
  • WakeUpPeople
  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  
    • kennymotown:

      And give me a break with the "yellow t shirts". Its like "tie the yellow ribbon" and evokes all kinds of nostalgia fuzzies. No wonder this is a PR campaign bought and paid for. Obviously there is a PR firm at the helm, choreagraphing the drama and weaving the persuasive message into the staged events.

    • 2 years ago
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