Chevron Using Cover of Independent Journalism To Escape $18 Billion Court Judgment

[Judi Lynn]

Amazon Defense Coalition: Husband of High-Level Chevron Employee Sends E-mails to Funders of Environmental Group Critical of Oil Giant's Ecuador C
– 42 mins ago
SAN FRANCISCO, May 31, 2011 –

Chevron Using Cover of Independent Journalism To Escape $18 Billion Court Judgment

SAN FRANCISCO, May 31, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Alex Thorne, the husband of a senior-level Chevron employee, has been posing as an independent "journalist" to send e-mails to funders of a small environmental organization that has been critical of Chevron's management for refusing to pay the company's court-ordered $18 billion liability in Ecuador.

The stunning revelation about Thorne's e-mails comes just days after several large Chevron shareholders blasted Chevron CEO John Watson for displaying "poor judgment" (http://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/may11/052511.htm) in Ecuador which "has led investors to question whether leadership can properly manage the array of environmental challenges and risks that it faces." The comments from the investors, who manage a combined $156 billion in assets and include New York's pension fund, are contained in a letter (http://www.osc.state.ny.us/press/releases/may11/052511.htm) sent to Chevron.

Thorne recently sent e-mails to several funders of the U.S.-based environmental group Amazon Watch in which he claimed to be working on an "article" for a publication he refused to specify. The e-mails then asked the funders "if it is time" to "reevaluate" their support for Amazon Watch in light of Chevron's oft-criticized claim that the 18-year legal case is part of an extortion racket.

Thorne is married to Kristen Thorne, Chevron's senior policy advisor on environment and energy issues. Alex Thorne did not disclose in the emails to Amazon Watch's funders that he is married to a high-level Chevron employee or that he has operated a pro-Chevron website critical of the leaders of the Ecuador lawsuit.

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20110531/pl_usnw/DC10996

[Peace Patriot]

1. Tut-tut! Rather a big goof by Chevron. Surely they can afford 'journalists' with better creds.

They have quite a field to choose from in the corpo-fascist press, among billionaires' "think tanks," in the corporate-funded halls of academe, even among the Nobel Prize winning literati of LatAm.

I think I'd be pissed off, too, at their stupidity, if I was a Chevron stockholder.

They were stupid to buy Texaco and its liabilities, in the first place.

Stupid not to clean up the horrid mess Texaco left.

Stupid to ask the U.S. judge to move the case to Ecuador and to agree to abide by Ecuador's court rulings, no doubt thinking they could buy the judges in Ecuador.

Stupid to use "dirty tricks" to get rid of the first Ecuadoran judge.

Stupid to revile and demean the poor victims of the vast toxic oil spills in the rainforest.

Stupid to pay top dollar to umpteen numbers of stupid 'prestigious' lawyers and Washington P.R. firms.

And now the truly awesome stupidity of using an exec's husband as a 'journalist.'

This is the whole problem with the "military-industrial" complex and the corpo-fascists who are running it. They figure that, with the U.S. military as their enforcer, and the U.S. State Department, CIA, NSA, USAID and all U.S. agencies as their lackeys and propagandists, and a Scumbag Diebold Congress to write any laws they hanker for, they don't have to be smart any more. The MIC profiteers can be stupid and make billions of dollars off U.S. taxpayers even for doing nothing at all, as with the many 'contractors' allegedly "rebuilding" Iraq and Afghanistan (and soon to be "rebuilding" Libya). Or, as with Exxon Mobil and Chevron, they can fuel the thirsty U.S. war machine at outlandish prices, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, or can double and triple the price of gas to ordinary consumers, for no reason at all, without consequences, and can therefore be stupid businesspeople and make one stupid decision after another, until the U.S. empire is bled dry and collapses around our ears.

That's where they're heading. They don't care. Incompetence doesn't matter--whether it's the vast incompetence of the Bush Junta or the billion dollar incompetence in corporate board rooms. They can't even competently hire a 'journalist'! What does this say about American ingenuity?

My solution: De-charter these corpses of American ingenuity; dismantle them, seize their assets for the common good, and start over. There are plenty of perfectly competent unemployed American engineers, inventors, designers, assemblers and other workers, business planners, accountants, secretaries, P.R. people, salespeople and even gofers and errand persons who could do a MUCH better job of running American industries than the idiots who are in charge and paying themselves billion dollar salaries and "golden parachutes." Time to CLEAN HOUSE!