Astroturf Comes to the Oil Patch

[Joanne98]

Undeterred by the fact that Greenpeace has totally busted their covert plans to simulate their own astroturfed citizen outrage about pending climate legislation, the Oil Industry held their first 'event' yesterday in Houston. The attending enraged Americans were provided by a catering service "a nationwide alliance of organizations and individuals" named "Energy Citizens". Reporting confirmed that the unruly mob was composed of local workers in various oil and gas companies who were bused to the event. "Energy Citizens" in turn is supported by the American Petroleum Institute--the same organization that had lost the leaked memo to Greenpeace.

A grim and grisly article in the NYT describes the unruly chaos at the scene:


Mentions of the legislation, which narrowly passed the House in June, drew boos, but most of the rally was festive. A high school marching band played, hot dogs and hamburgers were served, a video featuring the country star Trace Adkins was shown, and hundreds of people wore yellow T-shirts with slogans like “Create American Jobs Don’t Export Them” and “I’ll Pass on $4 Gas.”

Oh, the Humanity.

Anyway, and amazingly, the American Petroleum Institute appears dead-set on going forward with their entire busted-outed campaign across the country, even though everyone and their grandmother (if any have survived the health care plug-pulling) knows exactly what Big Oil is doing and how they are paying for it.

We can only hope that future events will have marching bands forming the face of Obama with a Hitler mustache. After all, everyone knows Hitler attempted to kill his own domestic energy industry--right after forcing Europe to accept free German health-care--so comparisons are inevitable.

Just in case any FDL readers might want to see what they're like, here is a listing of future venues, right out of the API secret memo. Who knows--you might get some free hotdogs out of the deal.

Continued>>>
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/7365

[stuball111]

1. I shudder to think how much money they spend on propaganda

when people are hurting so bad. It's just plain evil.