Sierra Club
Only one of these people is being paid to be there.
When it comes to environmental activism, the competing sides have two very different strengths: clean air and clean water advocates have grassroots support and motivated activists, while industry groups have cash.
As a result, the former has grassroots support; the latter has astroturf.
This isn't exactly new. A few years ago, the American Petroleum Institute urged oil industry employees to pose as regular ol' "citizens" who oppose climate change legislation. Around the same time, a D.C. lobbying firm, working for the coal industry, sent bogus letters to Democratic lawmakers in opposition to a cap-and-trade bill.
In these cases, the industry and its lobbyists couldn't rally real support, so they faked it, using their financial resources to perpetrate a fraud. It's textbook astroturfing.
And it's not going away. The Environmental Protection Agency has hosted some public hearings, soliciting feedback on the agency's proposed carbon-pollution safeguards. The Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago and the Sierra Club discovered that the coal industry went so far last week as to put an ad on Craigslist, offering people money to go to an EPA hearing, pretending to be pro-coal activists. The ad read:
Looking for people THIS THURSDAY, MAY 24 who want to make a couple of dollars for a few hours of your time.
All you need to do is wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project for two hours during the public meeting. We will be departing the Tinely Park convention center at 8:15 am for the meeting and we will be back by 1:30 pm. For your time we will pay you $50 cash and provide you lunch once we return to the convention center.
One side of the fight has earned dedicated supporters; one side has to buy what it can't earn and hope no one notices the difference.
Leave a Comment:
Unless I get to keep the T shirt, the deals off!
or:
I prostituted myself, and all I got was this lousy T shirt!
This sort of garbage is exactly why corporations should not be regarded as people for purposes of Constitutional rights.
It ought to be possible to outlaw this nonsense, but it goes without saying that a law banning such fraudulent misrepresentation would be struck down on free speech grounds by the current Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court really left us with a situation, where boldly lying is considered free speech. Too bad Obama won't force push the Fairness Doctrine back into policy.
Kevin - similarly, this Supreme Court would surely strike down the Fairness Doctrine if it were to be resurrected.
I don't think the Fairness Doctrine is needed; what is, is truth in advertising laws that would require the FCC, the FEC, and the FTC to act the same as if an ad were misleading consumers about a manufactured product. An article in ADWEEK.com by Sarah O'Leary in 2008 explains that "broadcasters and the government cast an ethically, morally and legally blind eye to the most important element (sic) political advertising--the importance of truth in advertising." As she says, "the power of political propaganda" has long been demonstrated. "The more often you communicate a message to a population, truthful or not, the more they will believe it." We need Congress to pass a law with teeth that makes political advertising at a minimum at least as truthful as product advertising. "In advertising you have to tell the truth about consumer products and services or pay the expensive and often disastrous consequences. It seems only fair that those running for the highest office in the free world be held to the same standards as a tube of toothpaste."
http://adweek.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Analysis%3A+Political+
Between FOX, billionaire contributions to Super PACS, and campaign distortions, the Congress really needs to enact such legislation or Citizens United and the lack of regulations will destroy democracy permanently.
Try this instead, if interested: http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/community/columns/other-columns/e3104016221490c0f887d3bcfddb4b2ff5d?pn=2
(But I don't seem to have much luck w/web addresses...sorry if it doesn't work.)
The truth is the current supreme court is not on our side. By 'our' I mean we the people. They have been, as a lot of judges have been, totally bought and paid for.
You see, Alice, here in Plunderland, money is speech, corporations are people, and democracy ain't squat.
If the public meeting takes comments, it would be worth forfeiting the $50 to stand up and say "anyone wearing a t-shirt like mine was paid to be here by <corporation X>".
I probably wouldn't go back for the free lunch afterward, though :-)
This may not have been discovered until after the meetings. But that does not stop the Sierra Club and environmental groups from submitting evidence that the corporations are soliciting people for the meetings. It is enough for the EPA to take notice.
You would have to think that, given the stakes of climate change, even the most obnoxious self-serving, undeserved-confident, and short-sighted of humanity's dickweeds would give pause before going all in on policies that will lead to handing down a severely diseased planet to future generations.
Behold the Republican party and its Useful, Obnoxious Idiots.
I think that wanderinMCD has the right idea. Shine a bright light on this type of behavior and it will run and hide. Keep the light on and it may even die or become so weak that it is of little consequence.
did you read that the KOCH BROTHERS are paying people from ILLINOIS to go to WISCONSIN for Scott Walker?
you need to post on that.
Yep. Here's the registration page to sign up for the bus trip from IL to WI. Lunch AND dinner are provided. It would be a shame if a whole bunch of FAKE reservations came in and the busses ended up empty: bit.ly/Jl5jl3
Remember when Bush had a couple of people wearing Anti-something t-shirts at a speech in West Virginia removed from the audience and thrown in jail?
I think its time for a good old crowd source campaign to get Brooke Alexander, the actress co-opted for the Petroleum Institute ads (in which she gets snarkier with every new ad release) to quit reading their lies for money.
So the going rate for your soul is $50+ lunch? That's quite a bargain!
I'd hold out for Wales, myself. ;-)
Astroturf doesn't deserve clean air or water.
Too bad real people need both.
My idea is to round up a lot of people to take advantage of this offer, and then write "PAID $50 TO WEAR THIS SHIRT" with a big black magic-marker all over the shirt. Really go all out to deface it, but be careful to not obscure the original message.
That way the coal industry will still have to pay all that money, but they'll get no benefit from it.
Lots of people are dependent for jobs on fossil fuels. There's little prospect of contraction of the oil industry, but the new regulations on CO2 emissions for power plants, combined with the market shift to natural gas, will mean many job losses in the coal industry regardless of what happens with renewables. People who have lost jobs or expect to do so are strongly motivated; don't assume that people protesting for coal are doing so because they are stooges.
People who depend on coal for their jobs are also likely to be able to light their tap water on fire. I cant imagine anyone living in a coal mining area wouldnt like the same access to clean air and water as everyone else.
I would need one heck of a lunch to do this :) but think about people that have been unemployed for a long period of time, unemployment (if they have it) running out or ran out, so I understand people doing it. I think it is better to blame the coal companies, they are preying on people that need the money/food, just by the nature of their low-ball offer. Just points out the extremes they will go to in order to promote their agenda.
A photo that's worth a thousand words!
And the Astroturf vs. Grassroots extends to Wisconsin's recall as well. Gov. Walker's ridiculously over-funded campaign is paying people $100 to put Walker signs in their yards. Skeezy at best.
Ontario Canada is getting rid of coal ... there is a plan in place to phase out all coal burning industry and replace it with green energy.
If we can do it - so can anyone.
http://news.ontario.ca/mei/en/2009/09/ontario-coal-closure-launches-countdown-to-green-energy.html
http://www.coalitionforsensiblesiting.com/doc/AWEAPolicyDoc-Nov2011.pdf
Coal industry astroturf? OH MY!
But when AWEA does it it's OK?
Read the AWEA policy document above and see for yourself. And they are pretty duplicitous with protecting endangered species as well. But don't believe me, read their document yourself! And then remind yourself that AWEA exists only because of the Production Tax Credit. Nice gig if you can get it!
Now let's all get back to work exporting our energy production to Danish, German, Indian, Spanish and Chinese turbine manufacturers!
bc americans are more deserving of jobs than people in other countries?
siouxZQ:
Notice that coal is not being replaced with windmills alone but also with thousands of megawatts of new natural gas generation. Wind alone cannot replace fossil fuel, only nuclear can. Wind is tied to fossil at a 1:3 ratio due to the low capacity factors of wind.The sad thing is that it we could reduce CO2 ten times more cheaply by just replacing coal with gas and skipping the wind turbines all together.
we could also consider using less energy. demand doesn't HAVE to go up. we could ration
What's for lunch? BALONEY SANDWICHES!!!
Baloney sandwiches are better than energy poverty:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oct/19/fuel-poverty-2700-victims-winter
My goodness! We have a real, live COAL APOLOGIST!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oct/19/fuel-poverty-2700-victims-winter
Perhaps Miguel is happier with energy poverty?
Or perhaps Miguel prefers European countries strip mining our tax code and exporting our borrowed Chinese debt to India to build wind turbines?
If these people love coal so much, they should just eat it.
Ontario coal and respiratory health:
http://nursesforsaferenewablepower.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/bill-palmer-coal-shutdown-repiratory-health1.docx
They couldn't even spell Tinley Park....?
http://www.tinleyparkconventioncenter.net/
Scott Walker, bought by the Koch brothers with money, originally, made in the service to Stalin and Hitler.
Google picture of grandpa Koch shacking hands with Stalin
http://www.coalitionforsensiblesiting.com/doc/AWEAPolicyDoc-Nov2011.pdf
But this is OK with you?