Wednesday May 27, 2009, 10:31 am
There is a whole site devoted to this report and the hallucinating environmental & human rights abuses caused by Chevron:

http://truecostofchevron.com/ - with a section devoted to each country where Chevron's operations provide toxic sludge and/or unbreathable air; cause asthma, miscarriages and cancers; render land unfarmable and water undrinkable; etc etc etc

Wednesday May 27, 2009, 12:46 pm
Antonia Juhasz on “The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report,” appearing on the same show as Chevron stooge, Media Adviser for Latin America !


Now Chevron’s annual report reports that 2008 was the company’s most profitable year in history. Just ahead of Chevron’s shareholder meeting, a new report released today (Tuesday, May 26, 2009) tells shareholders more about the hidden and underreported costs of these profits. The alternative annual report is called “The True Cost of Chevron.” It brings together stories from communities across the world—Angola, Burma, Canada, Chad, Cameroon, Ecuador, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the United States—all directly affected by and in struggle against Chevron’s operations. We speak to the report’s author and James Craig, media adviser for Latin America for Chevron.

Guests:
Antonia Juhasz, lead author and editor of 'the True Cost of Chevron' report. She’s also the author of "Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do to Stop It."

James Craig, Chevron Media adviser for Latin America (!)

A head-to-head dispute between an activist author, an activist journalist and a Chevron stooge !!


Obviously, it is far less painstaking AND far more satisfying to WATCH the program, but in case people can't take advantage of the 'real video stream' provided on the 'Democracy Now!' site, here's the tapescript:

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to another oil giant that’s operating in the Niger Delta, as well as around the world: Chevron. Well, ten days into the Nigerian military’s offensive on the oil-rich delta, militants blew up a major Chevron pipeline on Sunday. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, known as MEND, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Chevron said it’s been forced to shut down about 100,000 barrels a day since the attack. In an email message, MEND said it would continues its, quote, “cat and mouse tactics until oil exports cease completely.”

For Chevron, this is just more bad news ahead of the shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday. The attack comes in the midst of a fierce court battle in Ecuador over the polluting of the Amazon that could cost Chevron as much as $27 billion.

Now, Chevron’s annual report, that 2008 was the company’s most profitable year in history.

Just ahead of Chevron’s shareholder meeting, a new report was released today that is telling shareholders more about the hidden and underreported costs of these profits. The alternative annual report is called “The True Cost of Chevron.” It brings together stories from communities across the world—Angola, Burma, Canada, Chad, Cameroon, Ecuador, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the United States—all directly affected by and also in struggle against Chevron’s operations.

Antonia Juhasz is the lead author and editor of the report, available at truecostofchevron.com. She’s also author of Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do to Stop It. She’s joining us from San Francisco.

Antonia, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you lay out your findings in this “True Cost of Chevron,” the alternative annual report that you’ve just released today?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yes. Thank you, and good morning.

The most important thing, I think, first to say about the report is that it is a collaborative—unique collaborative effort of local communities all across the United States and the world telling their story of the direct impacts of Chevron’s operations on their communities, on their livelihoods, on their health, and an attempt to unite those struggles against Chevron into one movement and put it all together in one report to let Chevron’s shareholders know that while the case in Ecuador that is about to cost—it looks like Chevron is going to lose that case, a $27 billion liability, has received a significant amount of attention for good reason. It’s not an isolated case, and it’s not an isolated incident of harm caused by the company and communities organizing to ensure that Chevron is held to account.

So, what we uncovered in the report is essentially a consistent theme across Chevron’s operations in the United States and globally of a severe lack of adherence to environmental laws and environmental standards, public health laws, public health standards, particularly abroad, rampant human rights abuses, and aligning itself with some of the most brutal governments and supporting those brutal governments and regimes and their militaries in the world, including using those brutal militaries to protect its operations; also, that Chevron, very much counter to its public relations efforts, is very, very much not refashioning itself as a clean-energy company, but rather is moving even more aggressively now into some of the most environmentally destructive modes of production that we’ve come up with: tar sand production in Alberta, shale production in the Midwest, offshore drilling. Chevron also has a coal company. It also has a chemical company. It’s also engaging in even more environmentally destructive modes of production, while making, at best, token investments in green alternative energy.

And then, what our report attempts to do is, again, to demonstrate that there is a cost associated with this—these methods of production. And those costs are communities organizing, organizing against those actions, and holding the company to account, financially to account, in the case of lawsuits, in the case of organized boycotts, in the case of demanding that the company spend its money not on its image but on actually cleaning up its act and its practices.

AMY GOODMAN: You begin this alternative annual report by looking at some of the people involved with lobbying on Chevron’s behalf and some of the leadership within Chevron that directly relates to some people who are in the news today. Can you go through some of who these figures are, beginning with William J. Haynes?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: I’d say William Haynes is particularly important. He was the chief counsel, the chief civilian counsel at the Pentagon under the Bush administration, now hired in 2008 to become chief counsel for Chevron. Haynes is currently being investigated both by the US Senate and a Spanish court that may launch criminal charges against him for his involvement in the so-called torture memos, that Haynes personally wrote or oversaw the decision to use harsh techniques on prisoners in Guantanamo and in Iraq.

There was a letter, actually, when Haynes was being considered by the Bush administration for a judgeship, from twenty US military leaders against that appointment, saying that in those memos Haynes actually advocated the use of dogs to intimidate suspects, that the appointment of Haynes as the chief counsel at Chevron, given that Chevron is facing these mass human rights abuse challenges in Burma, in Nigeria, the environmental degradation and human rights consequences of that, in Ecuador, also public health challenges in the Philippines and in Kazakhstan, is quite daunting and quite disturbing for those who are involved in those cases to see, you know, what type of justices that Chevron is bringing to the fore. And there has been many, many calls to demand that Haynes be fired from Chevron and not be given that position while he’s under investigation for those memos.

Another interesting former Chevron board member, who was on Chevron’s board prior to his appointment into the Obama administration, is General James Jones, who not only is now the head of the NSC, but while he was on Chevron’s board had also spent two years as the head of the Chamber of Commerce 21st Century Energy program. And that was the Chamber of Commerce, essentially the largest business lobby group in the country’s efforts to directly challenge legislation to address climate change and to aggressively advocate the agenda of the oil industry for lifting the moratoriums on offshore drilling, for increased shale development, and other domestic—domestic efforts for the oil industry, but also to try and link more directly US foreign policy with our energy policy. And he’s now, as I said, the head of the Obama administration’s National Security Council. Those are just two key—key examples.

AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about lobbyist J. Steven Griles.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: And I’m afraid I’ve lost the sound in my feed.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: And so, can’t hear if you’re talking to me.

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe we can get a cell phone up to your ear. We’re going to try to get a cell phone up to your ear.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: There, I can hear you now, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: You can hear me now? You also refer to—

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yes, I can.

AMY GOODMAN: —J. Steven Griles, current convict. You write, as a headline, “ex-Chevron lobbyist.”

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah, Steven Griles was this number two at the Interior Department under the Bush administration. His tenure at Interior was described by the inspector general who investigated him as, quote, “an ethical quagmire.” He was probably the best example of an individual who was, while in office in the Bush administration, doing everything he could on behalf of his former oil industry clients. Griles became very much embroiled within the Jack Abramoff scandal, is now imprisoned for his role in that scandal.

And he was—in at least two instances worked for Chevron: one, lobbying on behalf of Chevron’s merger with Texaco, and in another, as a witness within a very significant case of Chevron and other companies being charged with, and then settling those charges, of essentially not paying up on the dues that they owed to states and the federal government for offshore drilling.

Now, all these offshore drilling crimes, that one included and many others that we describe within the report, are very important for the public to understand. As Chevron and the oil industry right now tries to lobby to say how clean and safe and good for the economy offshore drilling could be, we have that instance of them not paying their dues. The other instance we have is in Alaska, where there’s a current lawsuit against Chevron for dumping mass amounts of toxins and other pollutants into Alaska’s Cook Inlet as part of its ongoing offshore drilling operations there, again, another lawsuit challenging Chevron’s operations and potentially its bottom line.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn now to Ecuador. In a moment, we’re going to be joined by the media adviser for Latin America for Chevron, James Craig. But from your perspective, Antonia Juhasz, can you lay out what the issue is with Chevron in Ecuador?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Well, this is—there’s two instances. There’s two examples to focus on here. One is the extremity of the case, which is, for the thirty years that Texaco operated in Ecuador, its blatant and chosen disregard for environmental laws and environmental standards that created what’s called a Chernobyl in the Amazon of a massive oil dumping oil spill that continues to pollute, cause mass health problems, cancer, miscarriages, and has destroyed essentially the Amazonian jungle in Ecuador. And Texaco, which was then purchased by Chevron’s unwillingness to come clean and clean up its mess and pay for the damages and the health effects and the livelihood effects of the community, that judgment has now, as we’ve said, come up to potentially a $27 billion judgment.

But this is also the story of a long-term successful organizing by the Ecuadorians, supported by Americans, supported by a global movement, to ensure that this case, which was initially launched in 1993 in the United States, then moved to Ecuador, would continue to receive support and attention and be heard and continue to be fought, because as we see all around the world, the case in Ecuador is not isolated and that each of these communities is following a similar model, organizing, sustaining that organizing in the local community, needing support here, needing a voice here, to see that they, too, can carry their case all the way through against this enormous financial behemoth which is Chevron. And now it does look like, even though Chevron has consistently misled its own shareholders on this point, that the Ecuadorian judge is going to rule as early as this fall against Chevron and require a $27 billion cleanup.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Antonia Juhasz, who has issued an alternative report called “The True Cost of Chevron” ahead of Wednesday’s Chevron shareholder meeting.

We’re going to turn now to James Craig, media adviser for Latin America for Chevron. He doesn’t want to debate Antonia, but wants to lay out Chevron’s case.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, James Craig. I wanted to get your response to the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo opening an investigation of Chevron to determine if it is misleading shareholders about the financial risks the company faces in Ecuador.

JAMES CRAIG: Well, thanks, first of all, for having me on the program.

And, you know, I guess in response to that, the issue of Andrew Cuomo, I could say that, you know, the company is in the process of responding to his letter. Unfortunately, it seems Mr. Cuomo was misled by a group of US trial lawyers.

But first, let me discuss really what our position is with regard to the court case in Ecuador, if that’s OK.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, but just that issue of how you think that Andrew Cuomo was misled when it comes to Chevron revealing to its shareholders the risk that it faces in Ecuador, the financial risk, because of this case being brought against Chevron for its environmental practices in Ecuador?

JAMES CRAIG: Well, Chevron has disclosed for years in its annual reports and in its filings with the SEC exactly its position on the case in Ecuador. It’s not—the case in Ecuador is not a secret to anyone. It’s widely debated and discussed in the public sphere. The shareholders are aware of it. They’ve been made aware of it. The SEC has been made aware of it. So, I mean, there is no issue here with regard to the company not disclosing anything.

The judicial proceedings in Ecuador, just so as you understand, is a farce. And unfortunately, this is not about the welfare of the Ecuadorian people or the environment. What it is is it’s an attempted shakedown of a US company by a group of US trial lawyers who are colluding with the Ecuadorian government and who are seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of, really, hundreds of thousands of American workers, teachers, nurses, firefighters, whose savings are invested in Chevron through pension funds and 401(k)s. So what we’re dealing with here is a massive attempt to defraud the courts and the company and its shareholders of an enormous sum of money.

AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of 30,000 people suffering in Ecuador, the ones that the lawyers have brought this case on behalf of in Ecuador, the charges of the environmental devastation, what some call Ecuador’s Chernobyl?

JAMES CRAIG: Right. Well, the case has been brought on behalf of forty-eight Ecuadorian plaintiffs. The trial lawyers claim to represent 30,000 people, but these people are not named. These people are not identified. What I can tell you is that the lawsuit itself is brought on behalf of forty-eight Ecuadorians, OK? And the Ecuadorians have essentially signed over their rights to an NGO that’s been created by the US trial lawyers which would be the sole beneficiary of any payment or settlement in this case. So this is not really about the welfare of these people or the environment in Ecuador.

The term “the Chernobyl of the Amazon,” by the way, was coined by a supposed expert from the plaintiffs’ side who later recanted. However, the phrase seems to have stuck, at least in the lexicon of some people who are pursuing this fraudulent lawsuit.

AMY GOODMAN: A quick question: do you dispute the fact that billions of gallons of toxic oil waste have been spilled into the region’s rivers and streams over these decades?

JAMES CRAIG: Well, yes, we do dispute that. I mean, the notion of billions of gallons of toxic waste is a misleading and erroneous description of actually the oil production operations that took place there. They’re talking about production water. There’s no proof or evidence that they’ve presented to the court of contamination or widespread contamination. And the standards and practices of Texaco in the time that it was operating, that is, prior to 1990, were within—in keeping with the standards of the international—that is, the international standards of the day and of the standards that were employed in the US at that time. So, yes, we would dispute that claim and many of the other claims, such as the cancer claims and the health claims that they like—that they like to talk about.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, James Craig, I want to thank you for being with us, a media adviser for Latin America for Chevron. I wish this could be a discussion with you and Antonia Juhasz, but you prefer to keep it separate, so, as we agreed, we are going to give Antonia Juhasz the last word. Antonia, we just have a minute.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: I just want to refer listeners to our report and to our website, truecostofchevron.com, where we have the coalition that has been organizing, as I say, since 1993, led in Ecuador, supported by those in the United States and a global community, to highlight all of the true costs of this case and the discussion within this case and the very, very real crimes and harms that continue to be perpetuated by Chevron with its unwillingness to address the consequences of its production and its purchase of Texaco.

AMY GOODMAN: Antonia Juhasz, the charge of James Craig that this is not representing named people in Ecuador?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: It is absolutely erroneous. And so much of what he said is erroneous. I think maybe the first thing to say is that it was the company’s decision to move the case to Ecuador. This case began in New York. The attempt was to have Chevron—first Texaco and then Chevron—tried in US court. It was the company’s long-fought effort to get the case moved to Ecuador, the primary reason being so that it could say, which is what it’s trying to—

AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: —trying to claim now, which is that regardless of the judgment, it doesn’t have to adhere to it, because it’s an Ecuadorian court.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. Antonia Juhasz, thanks for joining us. “True Cost of Chevron,” the report.

Wednesday May 27, 2009, 12:48 pm
From the TrueCostofChevron site (I provided the link in my first comment up there):

Tell Chevron Executives and Shareholders:
CLEAN UP YOUR ACT, NOT YOUR IMAGE!
DEMAND AN END TO CHEVRON'S HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES, WAR PROFITEERING,
CLIMATE CHAOS, & TOXIC POLLUTION!

Wednesday, May 27th, 7 am to 10:30 am
Demonstration and Subvertisement Theater
Chevron Corporate Headquarters
6001 Bollinger Canyon Road, San Ramon, CA



Join the "CHEVRON SUBVERTISEMENT TEAM"
and be part of our living ad theater, flipping the high-priced hypocritical Chevron "greenwash"
ad campaign you may have seen.

Will you join us?

Send a note to: david@couragetoresist.org
Bay Area climate justice, environmental justice, solidarity, antiwar, and human rights groups will join together to confront Chevron at its annual shareholder meeting at the gates of Chevron World Corporate Headquarters (please come on time so we can greet the shareholders who arrive by 7:30 am) and to release "The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report," detailing the world wide and local abuses behind Chevron's record profits and the communities organized in an unprecedented resistance movement. At the same time, supportive shareholders and impacted community and movement representatives inside the shareholder meeting will confront Chevron executives and urge shareholders to support environmental and human rights resolutions.



GETTING THERE:
PUBLIC TRANSIT: Take BART to the Walnut Creek station.
We will provide shuttles from Walnut Creek BART to the demonstration.
Or you can take a 1/2 hour ride on County Connection shuttle to San Ramon Transit Center
(95X or 96X commute express on the half hours til 9:15am; see cccta.org).

BIKE or it's a flat 12-mile bike ride from Walnut Creek BART (Check BART bike hours/rules).

CARPOOLS: If you have space in your car or need a ride contact: hallie@globaljusticeecology.org

SF: Meet @ 6am in the Safeway parking lot, Church and Markets Streets
EAST BAY: Meet @ 6:15am at MacArthur BART

DRIVING DIRECTIONS: A quick 25 miles east of Oakland. Take 580 to highway 24 E. to I-680 S to exit #34 (Bollinger Canyon Road). Left over highway, then take your first left on Sunset Dr. into the shopping center. Park. Walk back across Bollinger to Chevron entrance.

COFFEE, BEVERAGES AND SNACKS PROVIDED

Co-sponsored by: Amazon Watch, Justice in Nigeria Now!, Global Exchange, US Labor Against the War, Communities for a Better Environment, Burmese American Democratic Alliance-SF, West County Toxics Campaign, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Laotian Organizing Project, Iraq Veterans Against the War-Bay Area, UA in the Bay, Rising Tide-Bay Area, Crafts Not Carbon, Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity (FACES) and more.


Download a printable poster to display in your home or car window

Wednesday May 27, 2009, 12:55 pm
----------TELL CHEVRON WHAT YOU THINK OF THEIR GREENWASHING ADS !!----------


Send Chevron a Message -
-------Give Chevron CEO David O'Reilly and the Chevron Board of Directors
a piece of your mind...


Message: I refuse to "join" Chevron's greenwashing ad campaign, and I will spread the word about the true cost of Chevron's actions around the world. Chevron must show through its actions that it respects human rights and the environment, instead of wasting money on ad campaigns challenging the public to be "green". It's time for Chevron to clean up its act, not its image!

Your Name:

Your EMail Address:

Thursday May 28, 2009, 7:42 am
It's a real pain, but I haven't owned a car for almost twenty years - that's how committed I am to undermining the the Oil Barons. Alas, I rent my place, and have no choice in terms of heating.

Craig's assertions in this case would be laughable were it not for the fact that cases involving wealthy corporations rarely provide justice or adequate compensation for the victims. Nevertheless, I am hoping Chevron pays for their lack of ethics causing environmental degradation and human suffering.

Friday May 29, 2009, 12:41 am
I saw a TV program many years ago on PBS showing the effects of the massive Chevron pollution in Ecuador
and its effects on the local population. It was horrible! I truly hope Chevron pays for their unethical behaviour!

Friday May 29, 2009, 2:19 am
Thanks, Elainna; I hope so, too!

Have you read how Chevron's "media adviser" just dismisses the 'claims' of the massive destruction, when Antonia Juhasz speaks of an Amazonian "Chernobyl"?

And to respond to Pamylle: Even with a car, Pamylle, California's a bit far for a quick round trip from NY!

How I wish the tens thousands of concerned citizens would descend on the AGMs of all these corporate profiteers!

((We don't own a car, either, btw,though I must admit it is more for reasons of low finances & convenience (traffic jams/parking ordeals in Paris are simply epic, when, with the monthly public transport pass, getting around is MUCH more practical! But getting away for weekends is a downer without...) than commitment to undermining the ruthless Oil Giants! I admire your dedication to the cause!))

I hope you all have had a look at the fantastic ads that they are running on the TrueCostofChevron site- one for each country suffering from Chevron environmental damage & the ensuing health woes- each ad highlights a different aspect of the harm being done, with a quote and the close-up photo of a person from each of the 11 countries- "I'll try not to breathe when I'm outside"(Kazakhstan); "I'll probably have a miscarriage" (Ecuador); "I'll try to survive while my country is being exploited" (Irak); etc. The link to the campaign site is in my first comment up there.

As for 'laughable,' well, I just can't laugh at anything this 'media adviser' could possibly say. How can he be proud of dedicating his life to defending Chevron's image, finding ways to counter the truth, when the reality of both this corporation's operations and PERSONNEL is just simply horrific!!

Did you read what about the people who work for Chevron?
This is just one, a former Bushite from the Pentagon, under investigation for his involvement in Bush torture policy- charged with actually drafting or overseeing the decision to use specifically harsh techniques on detainees! This man is now chief counsel for Chevron: a person in a peculiarly excellent position to provide useful advice to complicit govts like Nigeria in dealing with their anti-Chevron/environmental justice activists:

"William Haynes is particularly important. He was the chief counsel, the chief civilian counsel at the Pentagon under the Bush administration, now hired in 2008 to become chief counsel for Chevron. Haynes is currently being investigated both by the US Senate and a Spanish court that may launch criminal charges against him for his involvement in the so-called torture memos, that Haynes personally wrote or oversaw the decision to use harsh techniques on prisoners in Guantanamo and in Iraq.

There was a letter, actually, when Haynes was being considered by the Bush administration for a judgeship, from twenty US military leaders against that appointment, saying that in those memos Haynes actually advocated the use of dogs to intimidate suspects, that the appointment of Haynes as the chief counsel at Chevron, given that Chevron is facing these mass human rights abuse challenges in Burma, in Nigeria, the environmental degradation and human rights consequences of that, in Ecuador, also public health challenges in the Philippines and in Kazakhstan, is quite daunting and quite disturbing for those who are involved in those cases to see, you know, what type of justices that Chevron is bringing to the fore. And there has been many, many calls to demand that Haynes be fired from Chevron and not be given that position while he’s under investigation for those memos."

And then there's J. Steven Griles, current convict, and “ex-Chevron lobbyist,” n° 2 at the Interior Department under the Bush administration. His tenure at Interior was described by the inspector general who investigated him as, quote, “an ETHICAL QUAGMIRE.” He was probably the best example of an individual who was, while in office in the Bush administration, doing everything he could on behalf of his former oil industry clients." (THIS IS JUST LIKE THE MONSANTO PEOPLE WHO GET CALLED INTO GOVERNMENT TO 'SERVE' IN AGRICULTURE OR FDA ! - same UNETHICAL MERRY-GO-ROUND between private business & government agencies -- 'WE THE PEOPLE' certainly becomes a very bad JOKE!!)

What is even more upsetting, if not to say revolting, is the indication that Obama is following in his predecessor's unethical footsteps --"Another interesting former Chevron board member, who was on Chevron’s board prior to his appointment into the Obama administration, is General James Jones, who not only is now the head of the NSC, but while he was on Chevron’s board had also spent two years as the head of the Chamber of Commerce 21st Century Energy program. And that was the Chamber of Commerce, essentially the largest business lobby group in the country’s efforts to directly challenge legislation to address climate change and to aggressively advocate the agenda of the oil industry for lifting the moratoriums on offshore drilling, for increased shale development, and other domestic—domestic efforts for the oil industry, but also to try and link more directly US foreign policy with our energy policy. And he’s now, as I said, the head of the Obama administration’s National Security Council." Ugh!!


I would just like to juxtapose Craig's assertion about Ecuador and what Antonia Juhasz says about Ecuador:

Juhasz: One is the extremity of the case, which is, for the thirty years that Texaco operated in Ecuador, its blatant and chosen disregard for environmental laws and environmental standards that created what’s called a CHERNOBYL IN THE AMAZON of a massive oil dumping, oil spill that continues to pollute, cause MASS HEALTH PROBLEMS, CANCERS, MISCARRIAGES, (and Craig says there is no proof, no evidence!!) and has destroyed essentially the Amazonian jungle in Ecuador. And Texaco, which was then purchased by Chevron’s unwillingness to come clean and clean up its mess and pay for the damages and the health effects and the livelihood effects of the community, that judgment has now, as we’ve said, come up to potentially a $27 billion judgment.

Craig: "The judicial proceedings in Ecuador, just so as you understand, is a farce. And unfortunately, this is not about the welfare of the Ecuadorian people or the environment. What it is is it’s an attempted shakedown of a US company by a group of US trial lawyers who are colluding with the Ecuadorian government and who are seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of, really, hundreds of thousands of American workers, teachers, nurses, firefighters, whose savings are invested in Chevron through pension funds and 401(k)s. So what we’re dealing with here is a massive attempt to defraud the courts and the company and its shareholders of an enormous sum of money."

Look at his attack and the techniques he uses: he just dismisses the central issue -the welfare of the Ecuadorian people & the environmental destruction done, the 30,000 people suffering in Ecuador, whom he claims as being unnamed in the lawsuit & therefore nonexistant- and focuses on attacking the lawyers who represent Chevron's victims!--
Accusing them of being motivated purely by financial gain (as though this couldn't be said of Chevron!! as though Chevron were in a position of moral authority!!); suggesting they are criminal - 'shakedown' is a term used for the Mafia & such criminal bands of gangsters! And believe me, a Media Adviser chooses his words VERY WELL; this is calculated and the scheme to discredit the lawyers is REVOLTING!

Implicit is his accusation that they're unPatriotic: These lawyers are AGAINST -Seeking to harm, more importantly ROB!- good, ordinary, working Americans, the "hundreds of thousands of American workers, teachers, nurses, firefighters, whose savings are invested in Chevron through pension funds and 401(k)s," as though Chevron had the interests and well-being of these Americans at heart.

You're right, Pamylle, it IS laughable, come to think of it, to hear Chevron portrayed as the great defender of the ordinary American worker investing in their retirement plan! You almost want to pull out your tissue to wipe your eyes, so moving is Chevron's dedication to helping ordinary Americans have a decent retirement!

This interview is great, though, because, among other points, it shows how the report and the case against Chevron are moving beyond the relatively small world of activists and environmental-justice & human rights lawyers and into the mainstream: New York ATTORNEY GENERAL Andrew Cuomo IS OPENING an INVESTIGATION of CHEVRON to determine if it is misleading shareholders about the financial risks the company faces in Ecuador. GREAT!! Hope Craig doesn't sweet-talk Cuomo out of this one, or the ex-Bushite torture-memo author, now chief Chevron lawyer Haynes get the investigation stopped!

Sunday May 31, 2009, 7:19 pm
I really hope justice will be served and Chevron will be held responsible for the mess in Ecuador. Drinking water is contaminated, people are getting sick and dying because all this evil company cares about is money!
Here's an interesting blog about the contamination: : http://www.thechevronpit.blogspot.com

Tuesday June 2, 2009, 3:39 am
Thanks for the blog address - the name alone says it all -Chevron is the pits!