BP gets the Gold in Greenwashing!

Don't forget to tell Delaware's legislature and AG to REVOKE BP's CORPORATE CHARTER!

BP Propaganda Remix

Why does Tim DeChristopher go to jail while the CEOs of BP and Massey Coal go free?

I met with Tim DeChristopher at Netroots Nation, and asked him a similar question. Unfortunately my Flip Cam's battery died during my filming the panel discussion.

My question was this-- If MTR coal mining is literally killing people, why isn't anybody prosecuting the executive boards of these companies for murder?

Tim's answer was that we need creative and daring prosecuting attorneys to bring these sorts of cases. Which I took to mean in a roundabout way, that I should redouble my efforts at getting into law school. Specifically Pace, where Robert F Kennedy teaches.

Seeing this interview with Robert F Kennedy Jr is enheartening. Perhaps he and the Pace law clinic will pursue charges?

The following was originally posted over at Peaceful Uprising

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Environmental activist Tim DeChristopher is going to jail, but Don Blankenship isn’t—despite the fact that he illegally destroyed an entire mountain range. Why? Because he’s the CEO of Massey Energy Company—and has completely bought off the judicial system in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky.

In this conversation with The Nation and On the Earth Productions recorded at Chicago’s Orrington Hotel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that we are once again on the verge of losing our democracy to corporate power. Yet instead of surrendering the achievements of the New Deal and Progressive Era, activists need to fight for the middle class and prepare the way for social change. Kennedy has long been active in the environmental justice movement, and his latest efforts to stop mountaintop removal mining are featured in the new documentary, The Last Mountain.

DON'T REVOKE BP'S CORPORATE CHARTER!

DON’T REVOKE BP’S CHARTER!

Then they’ll be off the hook, and stick the US taxpayer with the bill! Right?

Besides they stopped the spill, everything is cool now.

FALSE! OPPOSITE!

In fact, quite the opposite! Currently, BP has an escrow fund of 20 billion dollars, but there's a catch. Just like after 9-11, if you make a claim to this fund, you have to sign away your right to sue for damages later on. And we all know how well that's worked out for the 9-11 Rescue workers. (Or do you? They're being fucked over and they're all dying of lung disease, that's how well it turned out)

We have no idea what the long-term health effects are going to be from this spill. From the oil, as well as the dispersants used to send the oil to the ocean floor, and is now allowing unnatural toxic compounds to work their way through the food web.

BP's clean-up responsibilities are capped at a mere $75 million-- which is absurd when compared with the actual cost of long term damages to the environment, to people’s health, to people’s livelihoods, etc. If BP spends more than this, they can call it quits at any point in time, no matter how much mess is left. And that's exactly what they're doing.

--And it seems even MORE absurd when you account for the fact that BP made more than 186 times as much as that in profits alone JUST LAST YEAR.

That’s PROFITS. That’s what they had laying around after they got done paying for all their expenses, after paying out all their wages, after paying for all their leasing rights, after paying pensions, after paying for equipment purchases.

Hey Taxpayers, Don’t want to get stuck with the bill for cleaning up all that oil that's on the ocean floor (thanks to Corexit)? Well you should know that right now, BP is claiming a nearly $10 BILLION dollar tax credit for the spill. Yeah that’s right: they want the US taxpayer to PAY THEM for doing what they should be doing anyways.

What about legal claims against them? Well, if this spill ends up being anything like the Exxon Valdez spill, legal claims could well be tied up in courts for the next 20 years, many of the plaintiffs will die as a result of toxins they’ve been exposed to, and then after the claim is finally won, it will be reduced to a mere pittance.

Another possible outcome if we fail to revoke BP’s corporate charter: They could pull a Union-Carbide. After an explosion at a Union-Carbide plant in Bhopal India released toxic gases that killed or injured thousands, Union Carbide simply folded, and sold everything to Dow Chemical. Dow Chemical has refused to pay out any of the claims held against Union Carbide, and the CEOs of Union Carbide jumped ship with millions of dollars.

If you REALLY don’t want the US taxpayer to get stuck with the bill, and you REALLY want to see things done right, then you REALLY should be in favor of revoking BP’s corporate charter.

If BP’s corporate charter is revoked, they won’t have the right to do business in the USA anymore. Their assets will be seized, and they will be put into receivership- which means that the Government then has control of their assets, AND the legal obligation to pay out all the bills, fines, and lawsuits that BP has racked up.

Rather than holding on to those $14 billion of annual profits to pay out to shareholders, those $14 billion dollars in profits could go to doing what’s right-- cleaning up the gulf, and paying for the damages to people’s health, people’s livelihoods, and our planet.

And the most upsetting thing of all, is that this is just ONE SPILL, I'm talking about here!

BP has been playing it fast and loose with safety procedures for YEARS. How the hell are we supposed to trust that when they go up to Alaska to drill, they're going to do better?

Or when they come back to drill in the same spot as the Deepwater Horizon? They didn't smarten up after any of the OTHER times that they've fucked up, in Alaska, in Texas City, and so on, why should this now be any different? It's obvious that so long as they keep making profits, they couldn't give a rat's ass what the consequences are.

Please join me in the push to revoke BP’s corporate charter. As Tony Hayward once said: “We can get this done. We can make this right.”

Jeremy Jackson: How we wrecked the Ocean

A good reason to not eat seafood.

Carl Safina: The Oil Spill You Can't See

"At least when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, people shot back." - Carl Safina

Click here toRevoke BP's Corprate Charter

Toxicologist Susan Shaw explains exactly how F**ked the Gulf is

Thanks BP.


REVOKE BP'S CORPORATE CHARTER

RightChange.com -The Ultimate in Right-Wing Greenwashing

Have you seen this load of tripe?

Talking Feds 3 from RightChange on Vimeo.

You would think that a video depicting Obama as being soft on the oil companies would be coming from some progressive leftist organization like GreenChange.org or GreenPeace.

But no. This right-wing PAC called "Right Change" is playing on anger over the oil spill, and placing blame squarely on the shoulders of Obama.

There's one problem: the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico isn't his fault.

Sure, Obama's administration shares some of the blame for continuing the rubber stamp policies for drilling permits at the MMS, and for dragging their feet when it comes to cleaning out the former employees who were literally in bed with the industry, but the disaster does not start with Obama.

What is Right Change's solution? Elect Republicans.

It's the conservative mantra of "Deregulate, Deregulate Deregulate!" that was at the source of the problem. Conservatives wanted less government, and corporate democrats wanted the same thing, with different language (they're pro-business.)

That this organization is riffing on the public's anger over the oil spill, and then offering the election of Republicans to "take back washington" is beyond disingenuous.

This double-think required to NOT see the contradiction here would scare even George Orwell.

Here's something you can do to hold Democrats and Republicans accountable, and prevent future oil spills from happening:

Revoke BP's Corporate Charter

BP Built its Crisis Response Center in Photoshop

Thanks to So_You_Know on twitter for pointing me to this post by AmericaBlog

Much like the oil that is spewing from the earth and poisoning the sea and land, BP has been spewing lies and poisoning public discourse.
First they lied about being a Green Company, rebranding as "Beyond Petroleum" after an explosion in a Texas Oil Refinery killed 15 employees, injured more than 170, and released.
They faked their blowout preventer tests on the Deepwater Horizon.
They lied about their preparedness to deal with an oil spill resulting from their drilling.
Then when the Deepwater Horizon went down, they lied about the amount of oil that was spilling from the wellhead. First it was 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000. We know now that it was likely 60,000 barrels a day, and could have been as much as 100,000 barrels a day.
Then they lied to the press about their safety record.
Then they lied about their cleanup efforts, busing in actors to play the part of oil cleanup extras as a backdrop for Obama's visit.
Now as a patina on this veneer of lies, it turns out that their Crisis Command Center was >built in Photoshop.

From AmericaBlog

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UPDATE 12:08PM Eastern 7/20/10: BP has faked yet another oil crisis response photo on its Web site.

UPDATE: 11:14PM Eastern: BP has now posted the "original" photo, they claim. Except - surprise - they are refusing to post the high-resolution version of the new "original" photo (update: they've now posted the original photo). They posted the high-res version of the altered photo earlier, and in fact, that version is still live via a link below the new photo. Why not post the high-res version of the new "original" photo? Afraid someone is going to enlarge it and find out it's fake too?

[snip]

Uh, a few questions.

1) Why were the screens in the crisis center blank in the middle of the crisis? Coffee break?
2) The BP spokesman claims that the photographer photoshopped the changes. Really? A professional photographer hired by BP Photoshops so poorly that a 12 year old kid could do a better job. Really? Let me show you what BP said exactly, and then the photo that supposedly this "professional" edited:

Scott Dean, a spokesman for BP, said that there was nothing sinister in the photo alteration and provided the original unaltered version. He said that a photographer working for the company had inserted the three images in spots where the video screens were blank.

Now here is the Photoshop job that the "professional" photographer did - this is just one part of the photo that he screwed up:


Anyone who has ever used Photoshop knows that this is an incredibly amateur job. I can do far better than this, and I tend to play with Photoshop for fun. We're to believe that a professional photographer did this poor a job, for pay, for a huge corporate client? Really? No one would hire this photographer again if this is true. Oh, and the photographer added the fake screens to the photo, what, without BP's permission? That's what they're implying, "the photographer did it."

3) Why does the meta data show that the photo was actually taken on March 6, 2001? Or is BP next going to tell us that their professional photographer has never set the time and date stamp on his multi-thousand dollar camera? Because then all of his photos for all of his clients will be screwed up. Really?
______________________________________

UPDATE: The photo contains data suggesting it was taken in 2001, not July of 2010 as claimed on BP's Web site. That would suggest, at least one possibility is, that BP took an old photo and Photoshopped new pictures of the oil spill over it, to make it look "new." More on this at the end of the post.

I guess if you're doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center. Why do they need a fake photo at all? Don't they have a real crisis response center they could have used?

Original BP Photo that is linked off of this page, with a snippet of the photo:

[snip]

... [A]n astute reader noticed that the meta info for the photo says it was created in 2001, not July 16, 2010 as claimed on BP's site. It looks like BP took a photo from 2001, and in order to make it look like the command center in July of 2010, they pasted pictures of the oil well leaking over the old photo.

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Since AmericaBlog posted this article, the Washington Post also picked up on this news nugget, and posted a back and forth analysis between the shitty photoshop job, and what BP claims is the original photo.

In reality, the fact that BP has lied about yet another thing, and an inconsequential one at that, shouldn't be surprising. What's surprising is that even though we keep catching them, even though nobody trusts them anymore, they STILL KEEP LYING.

The fact that they are lying about such inconsequential things makes me think of a dying animal desperately thrashing about. For their own sake, I say it's time for a mercy kill.

Maddow: BP is "contaminating" scientists

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

[video] UNF**K THE GULF!!

FUCK FUCK FUCK

1 ton tarball found off the coast of FL

Thanks to GreenChange.org for the link.

Great Photo of BP's Tony Hayward

Great photo of Tony Hayward. And if you haven't, please take part in our 3 step action today: http://bit.ly/RevokeBP1

If you have, please share the link!

Ken Salazar is an Industry Hack

Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen making the case for Revoking BP's Corporate Charter

Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen's Energy Program posted an excellent article over at MRZine.

He explains how when you are a multiBILLION dollar, multinational corporation, the fines that you get hit with for breaking the law are, if cheaper than doing things right, just a cost of doing business.

Don't beleive it? Here's just a PART of BPs extensive wrap sheet that Slocum lists:

Just last month, BP paid $3 million fine to OSHA for 42 willful safety violations at one of its refineries in Ohio. This follows a $2.4 million fine BP paid for safety & health violations at this refinery in April 2006.

In September 2001, OSHA fined BP $141,000 after an explosion killed 3 workers at BPs Clanton Road facility.

In October 2007, the Minerals Management Service fined BP $41,000 for various safety violations.

In October 2006, the Minerals Management Service fined BP $25,000 because "operations were not performed in a safe and workmanlike manner. While making an assessment of the unsafe conditions on the platform that needed repairing, the construction crew did not barricade a 3'4″ x 3'4″ opening in the stairway landing. Later, one of the crew members was injured when he fell through the open hole approximately 20′ and into the Gulf of Mexico."

In July 2004, BP paid a $190,000 penalty to MMS for safety violations that resulted in a fire.

In February 2004, MMS fined BP $25,000 because "The Rig's Gas Detection System was bypassed with ongoing drilling operations being conducted."

In November 2003, MMS fined BP $25,000 for violations that resulted in an oil rig crane falling into the Gulf of Mexico.

In July 2003, MMS fined BP $20,000 because a subsurface safety valve was "blocked out of service."

In January 2003, BP was fined $70,000 by MMS for a faulty fire water system. Also that month, BP was fined $80,000 by MMS for bypassing "Relays for the Pressure Safety High/Low for four producing wells."

In January 2002, MMS fined BP $20,000 for a safety violation.

In May 2002, MMS fined BP $23,000 for a workplace safety violation that resulted in a worker having his hand injured from an electrical shock.

In September 2002, MMS fined BP $39,000 for missing 13 monthly tests of an "oil low level sensor."

In February 2001, MMS fined BP $20,000 for workplace violations resulting in serious injury to an employee.

He also appeared on DemocracyNow! where he builds a case for revoking BP's corporate charter.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

BP Spills Coffee

Brilliant sketch from the Upright Citizen's brigade.

REVOKE BP'S CORPORATE CHARTER - I'm Just a girl

Please share this excellent video by I'm Just A Girl. Her YouTube channel is here.
Then join the group below, and TAKE ACTION.
If you are unsure of what must be done, click here for more info.

Hilarious twitter accounts have arisen out of tragedy:

So eleven people are dead. An environmental disaster such as the world has not seen is destroying communities and natural resources for decades to come. Government refuses to act. BP refuses to spend the money it needs to in order to make things right.

Is there any condolence for us while we drift towards apocolypse?? Well, at least we can laugh at these great twitter accounts!

Two of my favourites are Spill Updates and BPGlobalPR, both of which seem like they are legitimate accounts.

Until one reads the content of their tweets.






Does anybody know of any others?

BP to blame in 8,000 oil spills

From the Sunlight Foundation

So here's the least you need to know:

British Petroleum and its subsidiaries have been the subject of roughly 8,000 reported incidents of spills, emissions and leaks of oil, chemicals and gases into the environment, according to a government database.

There's plenty more details in the article. If you click through to the original article, there's a robust interface with an interactive map, and a sweet-ass interactive data table.

CHECK IT OUT

Awesome Citizen Actions!

The Cool thing about the internet, is you never know what you're going to get back from other people.

The Revoke BP's corporate Charter Page has been sort of a hub for people to share creative protest ideas, videos, adverts, you name it!

People have been compiling research, reading legal precedents, digging to find the contacts for key officials that aren't readily available online, searching through SEC documents to find which state BP America holds charter in.

It's been an amazing display of Citizenry in Action!

I was once again surprised today to find that somebody had once again taken their anger beyond the computer screen, and out into the real world. And then posted about it on Facebook to share!



Totally awesome!

Two huge thumbs up! You all give me hope for the future.