Secret Recordings Reveal How Exxon Lobbyists Manipulate Politicians and Public

They would just set up domestic NGOs and funnel money into them through mules.

I dont honestly know why anybody would allow the National Endowment for Democracy in.

It's tantamount to giving another country the ability to vote in your elections.

I think it's more a broad brush description of age-old propaganda techniques[1], which have been widely employed by many organized religions over the years, just as they have been by others with an interest in controlling debate.

One particularly interesting (IMO) tidbit was Berman's strategy of encouraging doubt and ignorance. Rather than argue facts, try and muddy the waters he suggests:

> “Instead of getting the ‘he said she said’ debate, what you will get with the factual debate, often times, you’re going to get into people get overwhelmed by the science and ‘I don’t know who to believe,” Berman told the attendees at the conference. “But if you got enough on your side you get people into a position of paralysis on the issue.”

> “You get into people’s minds a tie. They don’t know who is right,” he said. “And you get all ties because a tie basically ensures the status quo.” [2]

Thus the utility of paid-for "expert" opinion taking issue with one strand or other of the broad scientific consensus on climate: not to win the public debate but to make reasoned debate ineffective and "ensure the status quo."

This methodology is part of the subject matter of Agnotology - "the study of culturally-conditioned ignorance." [3]

1: https://propagandaprinciples.wordpress.com/propaganda-techni...

2: https://www.desmog.com/2014/10/31/oil-and-gas-industry-s-end...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

The religion is capitalism. Millions of people believe in it with such fervor that any criticism of the idea feels like a criticism of them personally. Any criticism of deities (billionaires) or their church (business) is dismissed as sour grapes, because our deities are always benevolent.

Seems like covid coverage (IMO)

Or any political campaign.

It covers our recent (big, vague, heavily propagandized) "wars" nicely too.

IE : wars on communism, drugs, terror...

And now we have a new "war". The war on covid.

To win it we must sacrifice everything (free speech, free assembly, travel)

It may go on forever (2 weeks to flatten the curve ... 1 year to... variants, delta...)

Are you seeing the pattern here? Does it inspire you to raise your eyebrow?

Reminds me about the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. One of the subplots in book four is about the company "Goliath" and their attempts to be recognized as a religious organization. T

Yeah, he does cast his net wider than I implied :)

> Rick Berman, a Washington lobbyist and arch-enemy of other lobbyists and do-gooders who would have government control—and even ban-a myriad of products they claim are killing us, products like caffeine, salt, fast food and the oil they fry it in. He's against Mothers Against Drunk Driving, animal rights activists, food watchdog groups and unions of every kind.

- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meet-rick-berman-aka-dr-evil/

I don't know they seem to have really latched onto her ASD. Conservative commentators routinely dismiss her as a mentally-ill child.

She was given a speaking position in many events and fora, including the UN, where, correct me if my memory is weak, no other environmental activist has set foot. She has rich parents who sponsored and organized her "career". Something does not smell right here. Someone is taking advantage of her to let the steam about the environment out, by concentrating all the spotlight on that regard to a little girl who speaks big and innocently, but ultimately failing to point fingers to the people responsible - undirected shaming has been proven to have no effect anywhere ever. That someone might as well be her own parents who let her live the dream and maybe make some money out of the situation while she's at it - ASP together with her age maybe does play a role here as Greta herself is unable to understand what role she may be actually playing, taking the social "mission" given to her seriously and at face value. In time, the world's biggest climate change advocate will be a little girl that briefly made headlines, elegantly kept in check by the ones who brought her up to speak in the first place. And the rest will be given no attention - and no one will notice, if we want to learn how things are going we got Greta, after all!

What's OWS?

Absolutely, Also see Sunrise Movement

Build enough organization to effectively work towards a goal, say passing a particular bill; and once the goal is met, the bill is passed, it seems such a shameful waste to let the organization dissolve, when it could be re-purposed to another similar use.

Recycling is good in other contexts, right?

Also, sometimes, the organization was built and the cause fought as a route to empowerment for the people doing the organizing, in which case the goals are irrelevant. Sometimes the goals were the true reason, in the beginning, but the empowerment becomes too seductive and they fall aside.

Humans is tough to wrangle.

Is OWS a cult now? Or socially dangerous? Or relevant?

The problem with these "movements" and "organizations" is that they usually have very clearly defined goals and they come together to solve a specific problem.

I don't think any of the people coming together realize that, once they solve their problem, they're put themselves out of a job.

In a rational world, they would go find other causes to champion, but instead you see "mission creep", because no one wants to go through the hassle of building up an organization into a multi-million, or multi-billion dollar organization, only to have to dissolve it once you "win" your war, and then go build yet another organization to tackle yet another problem, although this is exactly what should be happening.

We're seeing this with civil rights right now. Any person who thinks the LGBTQ+-whatever community is actively discriminated against at a federal, and even at a state, level, is frankly being dramatic at best and mentally unbalanced at worst. But there are no "easy" major wars left to fight. This is an easy one that - in the minds of the "soldiers" at least - can be won with little money and nothing but a Twitter account. Beating climate change, conquering income inequality, etc.; those are long hard wars that will require lots of money, lots of time, lots of defeats, and lots of pain.

Most people aren't going to sign up for that when they can complain that there isn't a non-binary bathroom in Mom & Pop burger joint down the street, so they must be transphobes.

Boo hoo, they lost some board seats! What a world!!

We treat pot dealers more harshly than these fucks. Give me a fucking break. I'm sick of it.

No. Not like that at all. That’s meaningless.

That's because they know that fallout type scenario wont happen. Things will broke apart year after year. It's not coming hardly enough during their lifetimes and they already own enough to be protected from nearly everything (like, some islands).

I think their bunker won't run out of exotic luxuries until after they die quietly and comfortably in their sleep.

They might rest on their experience that, if it comes to it, they're going to be the ones doing the worst to other people.

My point exactly. This should be getting prosecuted under RICO.

Many people can be responsible for an outcome. The lobbyists, the elected officials, the many people who make money by helping them. And plenty more. We can and should hold all of those people accountable for their choices.

> I guess this what the second amendment was made for.

Eh, it's probably part of what it's intended for, but private ownership of small arms is, at best, a minor factor in whether revolutions succeed. Having the majority of your own, or a foreign, military on your side, is much more important. Or, if your military sits it out, widespread private ownership of small arms isn't really that big a factor anyway.

... now, if you're an unpopular faction trying to take over, and the military sits it out, that's another matter. Then having guns is very useful. Or if you're trying to destabilize things with guerrilla tactics and terrorism so the government becomes unpopular and successful revolution is feasible.

TL;DR: "We need guns to protect us from tyranny" is a well-loved, but poorly-justified, case for the second amendment.

> Actually even this is not enough; there are so many countries that fulfill these criteria and are still terrible.

Relative deprivation drives revolt. Guarantee every Somali exactly $2,500—no more, no less—a year and 99.99% of the population will deify you. Do the same in the US—let's say it's even PPP adjusted—and you'll be dead inside a month, and they may make a national holiday to celebrate the wonderful event that was your assassination. I suppose very very slow changes might not have this effect, but I don't think the effects of climate change will be that slow.

> Why would those in power ever allow a change to a voting system which effectively maintains their existing power structure?

The "American revolution" itself was arguably better called a "war for independence" precisely because it had little effect on who was on top in American society—so, given that heritage, I'm going with "no, definitely not".

As a recently naturalized US citizen, I have the same observations about American politics. Both the parties enjoy the benefits of lobbyist and PAC donations when they are in power and thus no one wants to do anything about. Gun control - no action, climate change - no action, infrastructure - no action... list goes on. As if the only goal of the party in opposition is to obstruct progress at any cost.

Donate to the Wolf PAC or a similar organization. Politicians can be lobbied to do anything, even pass reasonable laws that most people are in favor of.

Evidence says otherwise with respect to retraining and education. Healthcare quality differences are also questionable.

Retraining schemes have been less effective than random chance - with the least success going to long-term SSDI recipients in Appalachian states (~12% in WV). You would have more success with paying them off to live as they see fit.

As for education, that is a big mess that can't be easily quantified in the favor of the left. Homeschooling and private education have provided effective competition to government run education.

As for healthcare, the US model has attracted people from European model systems. If the US model wasn't so good, people wouldn't travel there (especially from the UK and Canada).

These so called "poor states" vote for right wing individuals for good reasons. The lights stay on, jobs largely stay or grow, and individuals can live a largely unobstructed life.

But they're not undermining a carbon tax. They're supporting it, based on their understanding that American voters are extremely sensitive to gas prices, far beyond an extent that could be considered reasonable, and that for that and other reasons a carbon tax is politically unviable in the US.

To be clear, I'm an extremely strong supporter of a carbon tax, to the point that I would vote for any politician who supports one regardless of their position on any other issues, and I would support the US creating ultimatums with other countries, including allies, to effectively force them to implement carbon taxes of their own. But I'm also open-eyed to the fact that the median American voter commutes something like 30 miles a day and has never taken an economics class.

The idea that a carbon tax is the best policy is itself an ideological position supported by certain entities with an agenda. Economists love to push it a lot. The same economists also like to downplay the cost of climate change (the costs incurred due to the damage it causes). And then there is the small matter of how much should a ton of CO2 be taxed at. Imagine all the lobbying efforts to reduce that number. It will never be anywhere near what it should be. And EXXON's propagandists have a point. People don't want to be taxed more, and a blanket carbon tax would definitely hit the bottom majority hard.

If you ask me, at least that's a step in the right direction. Not a big one, but still...

Or the Nox and Sox cap and trade market that started it all.

https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/acid-rain-program

Ontarian here, did I miss something? Last I checked we just had a straight up carbon tax.

I don't think we do the import tariffs part though, unfortunately.

Cap and trade adds a huge regulatory and bureaucratic burden to what should be a simple price signal (maybe that's the purpose?)

For example in the EU, the carbon price had fallen too low, so credits were arbitrarily pulled out of the market to force the price up.

What do you suggest instead? How will that not be "made useless via some loopholes or other means"?

The renewables folks ensure more lithospheric exhaustion/kwh.

If they won't listen, then I'll make money on it.

No. It isn't.

The reason why a lot of hedge funds are scooping these shares up is precisely because of the environmental lobby.

The environmental lobby thinks purely in first order: I am a good person, I will save the environment, I am fighting evil, oil companies are evil, they must be shut down immediately.

But the reason why Exxon produces oil is not related to wanting to pollute. Them embracing environmentalism, as the lobbyist wisely points out, is neither here nor there because environmentalism doesn't mean they aren't going to stop producing either. The reason why pollution happens and Exxon produces oil is because people need oil. If people stopped consuming oil, Exxon would just do something else.

Therefore, investing in oil and gas is pretty much a lock because it is fairly obvious now that environmentalists are jacking up the oil price, jacking up the gas price, consumers will starting paying triple the price to get to work, electricity bills are going to skyrocket, and oil and gas companies are going to do amazingly well. Again, the key point here is that oil demand is, if anything, rising whilst supply is going to stop growing or, most likely, shrink significantly in the next five years (something like $500/barrel looks reasonable to me, and double digit NG).

If environmentalists thought about this from the money perspective, they would realise that Exxon are nothing to do with it...but, as ever, it is easier for people to believe that a secret cabal of people who aren't like them is actually controlling the world, and that is why people disagree with them.

Also, it is far easier to believe this than take this to consumers, convince them of your arguments (rather than believe Exxon is bribing everyone), and tell them why they should pay more. Again, it is far easier to believe that Exxon are to blame, and that everyone would agree with you if it wasn't for Exxon, than recognise that you need to work to put in progress (Greenpeace are the classic example of a totally ineffectual, self-centered approach to activism...their campaigns are usually aimed at causing maximum disruption for other people, maximum press to boost the profile of people involved, and minimum attempt to actually appeal to other people's rationality...if Greenpeace didn't exist, the world would be the same).

It's not about having a smaller government, it's about having no government at all and third parties competing law enforcements and third parties competing private courts.

Not if there is nothing to steamroll. Moreover, the bigger the government the less the smaller players can compete.

Remember: if there are no laws, you don't even need to lobby.

Without a government and with a system of competing law enforcements backed by armies who setup different laws, and a system of competing private court systems, we may get fairer treatment.

Perfect justice is impossible to achieve (someone will always be able to bribe someone else), but by spreading out the corruptible people and by putting them in competition on a market (where reputation matters), you will get a fairer system than the disgusting monopoly we have right now.

I am not proposing anarchy. You are confusing socialism with libertarianism. Socialism is violence. If you don't trust me you can test it out by refusing to pay your tax.