Chevron Attempts to Bribe Journalist to Spy on Ecuadorians

There truly is no depth to which Chevron will not sink. The Atlantic just published a stunning article detailing the oil company's effort to recruit a Mexican journalist to spy on the plaintiffs in the Ecuadorian lawsuit and "dig up dirt" on them.

Read all about it here, and prepare to be outraged:

http://www.chevroninecuador.com/2010/08/chevron-tries-to-bribe-journalist-to.html

The Amazon Post's Sickening Lies

For a while now I've been meaning to mention Chevron's primary shill site, The Amazon Post.

Originally, The Amazon Post masqueraded as an impartial information source, purporting to tell the truth about Chevron's genocide in Ecuador. Anybody searching the Web might find themselves reading The Amazon Post, and it would only be when they got to the bottom of the page that they might happen to notice the fine print stating that the site represented the views of Chevron employees.

More recently, the phrase "Chevron's views and opinions on the Ecuador lawsuit" has appeared at the top of the page. I can only assume that the site's original, more deceptive configuration did not test well with focus groups.

Anyway, I just popped over to The Amazon Post to make sure I was getting its URL right so that I could link to it here. I hadn't meant to actually read any of their disingenuous content, but the following shameful blog post immediately jumped right out at me:

Amazon Defense Front Exploits Ecuadorian Hardship in Gulf Publicity Stunt

Chevron's blogger writes,

"A recent delegation led by the Amazon Defense Front traveled to Louisiana in attempt to draw a parallel between a lawsuit backed by U.S. trial lawyers against Chevron and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

There is no question that the people of Oriente face difficulties. However, there is no valid comparison with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the trial that is currently taking place in Ecuador. It is disappointing that the Amazon Defense Front (the named financial beneficiary in the Ecuador trial) and its supporters would take advantage of the people of the Gulf and their tragedy in an attempt to legitimize their fraudulent lawsuit against Chevron..."

And that's just the first two paragraphs. To see a major American corporation engaging in such a blatant and extreme distortion of the truth is truly chilling. This reality-distorting spin reminds me of exactly the type of galling dishonesty exhibited by shills for the Chinese government when they're trying to justify their continued occupation of Tibet.

It reminds me of the propaganda employed by the National Socialists against the Jews in the years leading up to World War II.

For the truth regarding the Ecuadorian mission to Louisiana, please refer to my previous blog entry, or get the straight dope from a real unbiased news source (Public Radio International) right here:

Ecuadorians Share Lessons for Battling Oil Companies with Louisiana Tribes

This is a photo a friend of mine took during a recent visit to Ecuador. Seen here is a caregiver walking on the grounds of an orphanage with one of the countless children whose parents have died as a direct result of Texaco/Chevron's poisoning of the Ecuadorian rain forest:



This is who Chevron is calling a liar.




Photo credit: Mary "Grassroots Girl" B.

A Chevron Executive Tours Ecuador

Please click on each panel to enlarge for maximum readability.







Correction: The 700 Billion Gallon figure IS accurate, but it refers to the total amount of toxic waste (oil plus chemicals plus contaminated water), as opposed to just oil.

Why We Fight

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine journeyed to Ecuador to do some volunteer work with the latest generation of children orphaned as a result of Chevron's refusal to clean up after itself. She could not help but fall in love with these little humans as they climbed all over her. Since climbing and hugging was one of their chief activities, she came to think of them as the Climby Huggies. This is what a Climby Huggy looks like:




Photo credit: Mary "Grassroots Girl" B.

Don't Believe the Tripe

Hello, and welcome to Chevron Shills. I'm starting this blog as a resource to keep track of the various canned comments which Chevron's paid supporters are posting everywhere on the Web. They do this as part of Chevron's well-funded, ongoing campaign to control the conversation about their destruction of the Amazon rain forest and de facto murder of Ecuador's indigenous peoples.

Whenever this topic comes up on any public message board, forum, blog, news site, Twitter or Facebook page, it is inevitable that Chevron's shills come out of the woodwork, pretending to innocently offer an alternative view.

They're easy to spot, because they always hit the same talking points. When "Joe from Arkansas," "Betty in Des Moines," and "Larry in SF" are posting on three different message boards, and all three posts contain, verbatim, the words, "I saw the documentary Crude and was outraged by what I learned, but then I did some research and now I feel I've been duped..." well, it's pretty obvious that Joe, Betty, and Larry are all the same person, using different screen names to create the false impression that Chevron enjoys massive, grassroots support.

When you see examples of this sort of blatant, dishonest shilling, please submit links and/or screen shots to formerlyflightsuit at gmail dot com so they can be listed here. It is my hope that this blog will become a resource you can use when fighting the shills.

That way, the next time you see "Bertha in Big Bend" posing as a concerned citizen and spreading Chevron's propaganda, you'll be able to post a reply saying, "Gee, it's funny that you claim to be Bertha in Big Bend, spontaneously offering these thoughts just off the top of your head, because, according to the Chevron Shills blog, you have posted the exact same words under several different names on several different Web sites. Here's a link..."



Thank you, and...



¡Viva Ecuador!