Corporate activism and you
I hate buying gasoline. When I must, I try to stop at Valero because I’ve arrived at the foggy conclusion that much of their oil comes from South America. Better than Exxon, Shell or Texaco, I tell myself. Better to buy crude from Chavez than the Saudis. (Which is actually incorrect — it’s Citgo that is owned by Venezuela, but perception is everything in the market and mine was wrong.)
That’s when I saw this …
The image above was snapped (”from my iPhone”) Saturday night at a Valero station in Austin, Texas. Take a closer look at the text …
“IF CONGRESS PASSES CAP & TRADE LEGISLATION, YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE. ‘CAP AND TRADE’ WILL COST YOU 77¢ OR MORE A GALLON”
Scary, eh?
The first items to jump out at me about this particular piece of corporate activism is how utterly brazen they are in claiming that I will be forced to pay for their refusal to take responsible steps toward protecting my environment. This sentiment penetrates the very heart of our plutocracy: If companies are held responsible for their transgressions, the costs will simply be passed on to the consumers.
The victim is to blame. Fuck the Doomed.
I sat at the pump for a moment, incredulous. Turning to my passenger, I said something along the lines of: “What the fucking shit is this fucking shit? Holy God almighty, corporate political activism on a consumer level? Of course, that is their right. But it’s also my right to call bullshit and make a stink about it.”
My first inclination was to reach up and rip the sign down. But then I realized, this is private property. I’m on camera. Perhaps that is not a good idea.
I immediately thought of a friend in Dallas who was once put in handcuffs for leaving a hand-made protest sign on public property. She was not arrested, but the cops certainly wanted to make a point. A ticket for “vandalism” was eventually issued, with a stern warning that she could have gone to jail for the night.
“How fucking dare they?” I said to my friend Mike, standing next to me at the pump. “This is Austin goddamn Texas. Don’t they know who they’re insulting here?”
I resolved then and there to find out who “they” are.
The company running this particular ad (and, I’m assuming, many others like it in more than just my market) is called Democracy Data & Communications LLC. The Web site advertised is hosted on capitolconnect.com as a subdomain. That Web site is managed by DDC. A couple quick searches and it became clear: this is a big player in the astroturf community.
For the sake of brevity I’ll spare the lecture. You can read more about DDC here, here and here. They are a big business advocate with ties to the Chamber of Commerce and the Republican party. It should not come as a surprise that they are propagandizing at the pump. I am actually more surprised this was not done sooner.
The president of Business Roundtable, which The Washington Post cited as “an organization of chief executives from 160 large companies,” called DDC’s methods “the future of lobbying” in 2005 — which says to me, expect lots more of this.
Disgusting, is it not?
I agreed with that rhetorical for a good 18 hours before I realized what it really means. The future of lobbying … Is you. Your ignorance or mental fortitude, your opinions and consumer choices are the future of lobbying. If they now believe it is necessary to come to your level, at a place where thousands of you stop as a necessity, then it is in part a victory. They are being forced to crowdsource their propaganda operations, expanding them far above and beyond Congress alone.
I take additional comfort in the knowledge that there are not many big political campaigns happening right now. It’s not as if they are running a media hit job on a senator one week before the vote. They are advertising against legislation that has been months pending — and they are advertising to you.
Of course, it’s impossible to examine the accuracy of such a prediction. Seventy-seven cents? At least? Really? I wonder what equation was used to come up with that figure. Shouldn’t there be an asterisk or some fine print on that ad? Maybe something like, *this number may or may not be complete bullshit, or *according to the Ministry of Fuzzy Math.
What’s more, it made me think that cap & trade — a system which would tax and limit carbon emissions by the largest polluters — may actually be effective. The simple, desperate act of whatever firm this is, hiring DDC to propagandize against cap & trade makes me think, with very little background on the details of such a system, that it could actually work.
Astroturfers and PR flacs everywhere, take note: My demographic, which is savvy, large and growing, almost always infers the opposite of what corporate culture tells us.
So go ahead, Valero. Charge me an extra 77¢ per gallon. You will just encourage me to get off gasoline and into a plug-in electric vehicle. You will just make me lobby my local leaders that much more for expanded public transportation. You are, ultimately, aiding the goal of that which you so protest.
Considering the gas I bought was just $2.50 per gallon, I’ve got to admit — DDC’s Threat certainly sounds much better than reliving the hardship visited upon us by their clientele during the Bush administration.
Interesting then, that a DDC-owned domain name server range once hosted voteforgeorgewbush.com. You remember, back in 2004, when he was running on “building a safer world and a more hopeful[er] America.” We all know how well that turned out. Got to love the slogans.
So congratulations, Democracy Data & Communications. You have just created an advocate of cap & trade. I hope your employers take note.
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The consumer ALWAYS pays in the end, so – yes – we will see higher prices because of this. And if you’ll do a little more research into CAP and TRADE, you’ll find out that it actually does little for the environment, but it does a lot to make a small group of people very rich.
You’re confusing Citgo (which has a quasi-connection with Argentina and Chavez) with Valero, which was a small company from Texas until it grew into the second largest refiner of gasoline in the US.
Look, all gasoline comes from the same @ 150 refineries in the US. It’s a cartel. Often the gas at the Exxon and the gas at the Shell across the street were refined at the same refinery, and the only difference is the detergents they add to the premium grades. Go to whatever gasoline station is cheapest. Actions taken against a service station don’t touch the companies themselves, which rarely own the stations that fly their brand’s flag.
Oh yes, I absolutely am. Thus the “foggy conclusion.” I just forgot to illustrate how it was wrong. Thanks.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] just felt the impulse to leave this article. I found it thought provoking in its brevity. Read it, it’s worth the [...]
They’re very misleading — the rough rule of thumb for gasoline price impacts under a cap and trade program is 1 penny per gallon for each $1/ton CO2 allowance price. Insofar as no models project a CO2 price this high for several years (except those that don’t actually model current legislative proposals and do worst cases — no offsets and no technology), by the time this price level hits, vehicles will get much better fuel economy. The impact on the wallet will be very small. You should buy gas at least from the 3 who are supporting legislation — BP, Shell and Conoco, as opposed to these guys.
Revolutionary innovations for hybrid and electric cars will be found in the article: 5 Steps to Revive the Auto Industry and the Economy. Read it on the Aesop Institute website: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
The two pages outline little known breakthrough technology that opens paths to cars that need no fossil fuel or recharge.
Later, more advanced versions can turn cars into power plants, wirelessly able to sell power to the local utility when parked.
Imagine the impact of cars and trucks that can pay for themselves, and end the need to build coal or nuclear power plants!
Visualize electric cars that need no recharge! Also, hybrids with engines that may need only one gallon of water as fuel every 1,000 miles. As impossible as it sounds, these technologies are now on the horizon.
Rowan University recently published results of experiments that can only be explained by a new source of energy. Other laboratories can readily reproduce them.
Skeptics should see that these experiments are reproduced rapidly, so that they may form their own conclusions.
These technologies hold promise of generating millions of green jobs across the planet. They will restore automobile manufacturing everywhere.
They will also change much of what is now believed about energy.
Stephen, this week we said goodbye to over 100 people that work at the Valero refinery here in Delaware City. They closed down about a third of the plant in an effort to cut costs. This is the first time in Valero’s history that they have ever had lay offs. Ever. The economy, of course, can get the general blame for the conditions. I could lay out the case that Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd are at least as much to blame for the recent economic troubles than our former president. Everyone loves to pile on President Bush – go ahead and join that group if you wish.
Valero, because it DOESN’T OWN OIL WELLS, has to purchase crude at market prices and sell the gasoline at market prices. They are not doing well right now (google VLO and check their latest quarterly report).
Cap and trade legislation will impose costs that are expected to end the ability of the company to do business. Valero is fighting for its corporate life. That’s why you see the signs.
They are fighting legislation that is allegedly intended to control a TRACE gas (necessary for life on our planet) in our atmosphere that runs about 340 parts per MILLION in our atmosphere (and that amount varies widely with the seasons). Toss out the scientists that depend on government grants to pay their mortgages, and you will have trouble finding any climate scientist that can argue that there is such a thing as global warming, global cooling, climate change, or whatever the term is this week. It’s complete BS for the weak-minded.
Even if enacted, this legislation will have almost no impact on global CO2 levels. There is no reason for it, except to hand over control of our energy economy to a new bureaucracy in Washington that knows (better than the oil companies) how and where to spend that money.
Barney Frank is all in favor of this legislation. That alone would make me suspicious, and I’m not even a Texan.
–”Toss out the scientists that depend on government grants to pay their mortgages, and you will have trouble finding any climate scientist that can argue that there is such a thing as global warming, global cooling, climate change, or whatever the term is this week. It’s complete BS for the weak-minded.”–
Au contraire, mon frère: Toss out the “scientists” that depend on funding by petrol companies to pay their mortgages and you will have trouble finding any “climate scientists” that can argue that there is NOT such a thing as climate change.
I noticed you said “we” when referencing a Valero plant’s recent layoffs. Your board of directors to blame, not climate scientists or congress. Then again, I wouldn’t expect you to believe what fossil fuels are doing to the Earth when your salary appears to depend on your ignorance.
It’s okay, some people didn’t think our planet was round either.
http://tinyurl.com/ybkccee
In response to another comment. See in context »“Then again, I wouldn’t expect you to believe what fossil fuels are doing to the Earth when your salary appears to depend on your ignorance.”
*sigh*
My salary derives from my ability to create value and produce goods and services. My efforts, multiplied by the capital of my employer, are a positive contribution to the life of our entire society. I’m damn good at what I do and I’m proud of it. Ignorance has nothing to do with my paycheck.
And I’m much too polite to attack those that I disagree with. Politeness is what makes our society work. You should try it sometime.
Unless they are “weak-minded,” like these guys: http://tinyurl.com/yhlyx66
In response to another comment. See in context »“The future of lobbying … Is you. Your ignorance or mental fortitude, your opinions and consumer choices are the future of lobbying.”
~~
you can refer to this as the Palin Effect. sway public opinion at the source.
youbetcha.
I live in Calgary, Canada – Houston North, if you will. We are one of the fastest-growing, most prosperous cities in north america (unemployment only recently rose to 7%), and much of it depends on oil & gas, and recently, especially on the reviled Athabasca Tar Sands projects 500 miles north. My own job doesn’t depend directly on the industry, but as a worker for the City, we’ll all be in job peril if fossil fuel industries are impacted.
But pretending that science isn’t science is willful blindness, intentional stupidity.
I am willing to believe that a particularly short-sighted and venal scientist (make that “scientist”) would fake research data or draw far-fetched conclusions from data, to enlarge an area of study and get more research grants created.
I could even believe that of 2 or 3 “scientists”. I *cannot* believe it of two or three thousand scientists, and especially can’t believe they could keep it up for decades of further study, with very well-funded skeptics snapping at their heels, checking their data and disputing their conclusions the whole way.
Anybody who does has never attempted to publish in a major peer-reviewed journal.
Further, I understand that scientists get attached to, and defensive of, their long-term researches. But that’s WHY peer-review is so tough. That problem has been around forever and the whole POINT of the many checks and balances in scientific studies and publications is to counter that effect. The “conventional wisdom” has been wrong before and the one contrarian maverick, right. So there are many avenues to be sure they are heard and allowed to present their data.
The AGW theory isn’t some out-of-the-blue narrative imposed wholesale on the scientific community recently; it has grown slowly and against opposition, and won its scientific supporters fair and square, one peer-reviewed article at a time, over more than 3 decades.
I wish it were not true. My salary a few years from now probably DOES depend on it not being true. And I remained a skeptic until the last IPCC report, where they raised their probability estimate from 0.7 to 0.9.
I’m sorry, (for both of us) “gfielder”. But it’s very, very likely to be true.