On Earth Day Eve, ABC And Huffington Post Call Obama An ‘Indentured Servant’ To The Coal Industry [UPDATED]
On Earth Day Eve, ABC And Huffington Post Call Obama An ‘Indentured Servant’ To The Coal Industry [UPDATED]
Prominent environmentalist and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has long described the Bush administration as “indentured servants” to the oil and coal industry, in particular because “virtually all the principal environmental agencies” were “being operated by lobbyists from the very businesses they’re supposed to regulate.” In a blatant attempt to create a Earth Day conflict between President Obama and the environmental movement, ABC News’ Brian Ross and Joseph Rhee are claiming that RFK Jr.’s attacks on the Bush administration and other coal advocates apply to the Obama administration:
RFK Jr. Blasts Obama as ‘Indentured Servant’ to Coal Industry
“Clean coal is a dirty lie,” says environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who calls President Barack Obama and other politicians who commit taxpayer money to develop it “indentured servants” of the coal industry.
After ABC News wrote this misleading story, the Huffington Post — where RFK Jr. is a guest blogger — promoted the piece on its Politics and Green channels:
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In fact, RFK Jr. has never called President Obama an “indentured servant” of the coal industry or anyone else. It is ABC News and the Huffington Post that are making that inflammatory statement, on the eve of Earth Day.
RFK Jr. has called the phrase “clean coal,” one that President Obama uses frequently, a “dirty lie,” in particular because of catastrophically destructive mountaintop removal mining:
The Obama administration, in line with President Obama’s call on the campaign trail to end mountaintop removal, has taken initial steps to restrict the process.
Below follow quotations from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about the “indentured servants” of the coal and oil industry, clearly identifying the likes of “West Virginia Senators Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller,” the Bush White House, “John Stossel or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity,” and industry lobbyists/Bush appointees Steve Griles, Mark Rey, Marianne Horinko, Linda Fisher, and Jeffrey Holmstead:
The coal industry’s indentured servants in the Senate managed to include more than $4.5 billion in benefits for King Coal in the Senate version of the economic stimulus package. West Virginia Senators Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, whose state has been devastated by mountaintop removal coal mining, injected several of the so-called “clean coal” projects into the bill. [RFK Jr. and Brian DeMelle, 1/30/09]
So it’s the mother forest of all North America, and that’s why it’s the most diverse and abundant temperate forest in the world. Because it’s the longest living. And today, these mining companies with the help of their indentured servants in the White House are doing what those glaciers couldn’t accomplish. What the Pleistocene Ice Age couldn’t accomplish which is to flatten the Appalachian mountains and destroy those forests. [RFK Jr., 12/12/08]
Now we’ve all heard the oil industry and the coal industry and their indentured servants in the political process telling us that global climate stability is a luxury that we can’t afford. That we have to choose now between economic prosperity on the one hand and environmental protection on the other. And that is a false choice. . . . The next time you see John Stossel or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity — these flat-earthers, these corporate toadies, lying to you, lying to the American public, and telling you that global warming doesn’t exist, you send an email to their advertisers and tell them that you are not going to buy their products anymore. [RFK Jr., 7/8/07]
There is nothing wrong with having businesspeople in government. It’s a good thing, if your objective is to recruit competence and expertise. But in all of these cases, these individuals, as I show in my book, have entered government service not to benefit the public interest but rather to subvert the very laws they’re now charged with enforcing — in order to enrich the President’s corporate paymasters. . . The industry and the great big polluters and their indentured servants and our political process have done a great job. And their PR firms and their faulty “biostitutes,” and all these think tanks on Capitol Hill, have done a great job over the past couple of decades of marginalizing the environmental movement, of marginalizing us as radicals, as tree huggers or, as I heard the other day, pagans who worship trees and sacrifice people. But there is nothing radical about the idea of clean air and clean water for our children. [RFK Jr., 9/10/05]
This is why campaign-finance reform is the most critical piece of environmental legislation that can be passed. If you want to run for Senate in a state like New York, you have to raise $25 million. That means you’re raising $10,000 contributions from people. Do you know anybody who can accept $10,000 from somebody and not feel indebted? That’s legalized bribery. If you look at all the major environmental issues here in the West—water, mining, grazing, lumber—it’s all about subsidies. We’re giving huge subsidies to the richest people in our country, and these welfare cowboys have got their indentured servants on Capitol Hill demanding capitalism for the poor while they’re protecting this system of socialism for the rich. . . Today you have a situation where virtually all the principal environmental agencies are being operated by lobbyists from the very businesses they’re supposed to regulate. The head of public lands, Deputy Interior Secretary Steve Griles, is a mining-industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional. You have Mark Rey as the head of the Forest Service—a timber-industry lobbyist who’s spent his career trying to destroy environmental rules. In Christie’s agency, the EPA’s second in command, Linda Fisher, is a former lobbyist for Monsanto, the world’s largest developer of genetically modified crops. The head of Superfund, Marianne Horinko, was a consultant for petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries, one of the worst offenders in the country. The head of the air division, Jeffrey Holmstead, was a lobbyist for the filthiest polluters in the electric industry. [RFK Jr., 11/04]
It's a sad testament to the impact of campaign contributions, our system and the political clout of this industry that you have very sensible politicians, including great men like Barack Obama, who feel the need to parrot the talking points of this industry that is so destructive to our country.
ROSS: So what's going on here then with these extensive campaigns and all the candidates in the presidential election last year endorsing this?KENNEDY: The coal industry and the carbon industry in general are the largest contributors to the political process. So, you know, you have politicians who have essentially become indentured servants to these, and adopt the talking points of these industries.
. . .
ROSS: Have you seen the commercials they're running now with President Obama, "Yes, we can" talking about clean coal? What's your reaction to that?
KENNEDY: Well, again, I think it's sad when political leaders feel that they are so indebted to these industries that they, and so fearful of them, essentially, that they have to endorse conditions that clearly are wrong.
ROSS: And you say that about President Obama?
KENNEDY: Yeah. Anybody who looks at this understands that the term "clean coal" is a dirty lie.
7 Responses to “On Earth Day Eve, ABC And Huffington Post Call Obama An ‘Indentured Servant’ To The Coal Industry [UPDATED]”
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Well, one issue is support for the tar sand oil production, which Obama supported via support for Alaska’s natural gas pipeline to the tar sands. Tar sand development is not profitable below $60 a barrel or so, and one bipartisan goal of the stimulus is to raise oil prices back to that level – not to support renewable fuels and electric cars that would undermine the price of oil.
Another issue is support for the coal electric industry, something common to most Illinois politicians. For example, In Oct 2006, Blagojevich celebrated the beginnning of construction of another dirty coal plant, Prairie. This dynamic is explained here:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/politics/stories/coal-and-clear-skies-obama’s-balancing-act
“In Illinois, listening to both sides meant listening to the coal belt. The black stuff lies beneath two-thirds of the Prairie State’s topsoil – and leaves many of the politicians who pass through Springfield with dirty hands. “It’s mythic in its importance here; it’s part of the fabric and the culture,” says Urbaszewski. “As a politician in Illinois, you can’t avoid coal – it’s a balancing act that you have to engage in.” Obama embraced that balancing act, actively seeking out friendships with coal-belt legislators; within months of entering the Illinois Senate, he was heading downstate for a golf tour of coal country. For Obama, who was viewed as an outsider by many of his caucus-mates, it was a welcome chance to build new alliances, and he sealed the deal by giving his backing to a long list of bills designed to give the ailing Illinois coal sector a shot in the arm. In 1997, he voted to divert sales tax revenues into a fund to help reopen closed coal-mines. In 1998, he voted for a bill condemning the Kyoto treaty and forbidding state regulators from seeking to limit greenhouse emissions. (His office later said that he had been opposed to unilateral state-level action, not to emission reductions in general.) In 2001, he backed legislation providing $3.5 billion in loan guarantees for new coal plants that lacked emission-limiting technologies. And in 2003, he supported a $300 million bond issue to help build or expand coal-burning power-plants.”
This is better than Bush, who started an illegal war for oil in Iraq – but it’s not change, just business as usual. Obama has no plans to close coal plants and replace them with wind and solar, and he has appointed BP’s chief scientist to the #2 position at the DOE, for example.
Fossil fuels and the coal electric lobby and the financial lobby all work together to maintain the status quo – Obama may not like it, but can he change it?
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:43 am“In fact, RFK Jr. has never called President Obama an “indentured servant” of the coal industry or anyone else.”
OK, I will!
Obama is not a stupid man. There is no such thing as “clean coal” and he knows it. If he stumps on that basis to curry favor with West Virginians, that’s one thing. If he thinks he’s going to implement “clean coal” as policy, then he’s an indentured servant of the coal industry, and I believe he’s the latter.
This idea of a nationwide power grid is the same thing. We here successfully fought having 500kV lines scar our pristine rural landscape to transport locally generated coal-fired power to DC, where they wouldn’t tolerate having a coal plant, as they know this crap about “clean coal” is a farce. Now Obama backs these power barons instead of decentralization of the grid, which is the truly green way to go. Again, an indentured servant of the power industry.
Further, he’s not just an indentured servant of the coal industry, he’s an indentured servant of the finance industry as long as sleazeballs Geithner and Summers, among the architects of this deregulatory disaster, are put in charge of guarding the chicken coop.
Geithner testified for two hours before the TARP Oversight Committee on April 21, and he didn’t answer one single blessed goddamned question he was asked. If that doesn’t indicate who Obama works for, I don’t know what could.
Had that TARP money been deployed to citizens, most people could have had all their 2008 taxes refunded. That would have likewise infused banks with capital as people rushed to pay down their debts. Those that didn’t do that would be buying big-ticket items. But no, the money gets deployed to Geithner’s insider cronies, the same cronies as Paulson’s, and instead of making loans, the banks sit on it. We have to be out of our freaking gourds to allow this to happen. We should be out in the streets with pitchforks demanding Geithenr’s head on a pike.
Hey, I’m a realist. I didn’t expect Obama to do everything right. But neither did I expect him to do everything wrong — and that’s what’s happening, right before our eyes. Thanks for nothing, you goddamn bullshit artist.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:29 amHmm. Not too sure why Ross & Rhee didn’t just claim RFK, Jr. had called Obama a “slave.” If you’re gonna lie in an MSM news report, make it an incendiary whopper.
Happy Earth Day, folks.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:41 amObama is a tool of the Elites, as were all our other presidents for decades before, with the exception of JFK, perhaps. The Republican/Democrat, left/right paradigm has been infiltrated & neutralized—they are two sides of the very same coin.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:00 amIt is an amazing travesty that bribery is considered free speech by the 1st Amendment. There is only one “Evil Empire” that I am aware of and its mission of hubris and avarice is operating at full force by our leaders in the churches, politics, law, business, and obviously government. It is further perpetuated by the MSM selling their sicko products and perverse brain washing techniques to an exploited population.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:04 amUmmm… what the ABC Report said is this:
“”It’s a sad testament to the impact of campaign contributions, our system and the political clout of this industry that you have very sensible politicians, including great men like Barack Obama, who feel the need to parrot the talking points of this industry that is so destructive to our country,” said Kennedy, who was reportedly under consideration as Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency director.”
What ABC is trying to do is respin Kennedy’s attack on the political power of the fossil fuel industry into an attack on Obama himself – and that fits a pattern of behavior from ABC.
For example, what could we also say about ABC’s uncritical support for the Iraq invasion, especially their parroting of Cheney & Rumsfeld’s lies about Iraqi nuclear and biological weapons? Where was the investigation then? Here we see endless space devoted to various Obama critics – but Iraqi oil is still off the table at ABC, isn’t it?
The most blatant example, however, is ABC’s refusal to run the ad produced by that Al Gore-led climate group:
ABC refuses to run Gore ad on global warming, Oct 2008
ABC is owned by Disney. Disney’s top institutional shareholders are (31-Dec-08):
FMR LLC $2,139,181,184
STATE STREET CORPORATION
Barclays Global Investors UK $1,595,867,251
VANGUARD GROUP, INC. $1,292,822,583
Exxon’s top institutional shareholders are(31-Dec-08):
Barclays Global Investors UK $17,512,572,295
STATE STREET CORPORATION $16,100,216,023
Bank of New York Mellon $6,862,311,733
FMR LLC $5,875,693,801
If Obama is an “indentured servant”, than Brian Ross is a wholly owned slave, yes? Better toe the line, Ross, or you get sold down the river – you know it’s true.
This ain’t democracy, folks – this is corporate rule – and most of the ‘alternative media’ is no different – non-profit private-foundation fronts set up by the same people who control the so-called “MSM media”. Any idiot can see that the robber barons are in the driver’s seat…
Obama has a choice. Is he going to be Herbert Hoover, or FDR? Based on his choice of economic advisers, so far it is Hooverism – that’s who Larry Summers would have backed, not FDR. FDR had a revolutionary rural electrification program, a road-building program – and that’s how U.S. infrastructure was rebuilt from 1933 to 1940 – at the same time that various U.S. billionaires were dumping money into Nazi Germany’s “industrial dynamo” and working day and night to undermine FDR. They even tried to stage a fascist coup, a project undermined by USMC General Smedley Butler – it’s all recorded.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
In any case, you can’t avoid the numbers – no money has been directly earmarked by Obama for wind and solar, but billions have been set aside for bogus coal projects. This fits a pattern developed during Obama’s earlier political career – as per all Illinois politicians. If he decides to keep thinking that way, we’re in a lot of trouble.
(P.S. did you know that George Will picked Blagojevich in 2006 as the most likely Democratic presidential candidate?)
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:09 amI am getting so sick of seeing countless commercials with beauty shots of windmills on the plains…what a bunch of feel-good propaganda.
Any carbon-based energy program is not the answer, even ones that decrease it. If we stopped every single emitter of CO2 today, it would take over a hundred years to get back to CO2 levels of a hundred years ago. It’s real simple, folks: Elimination of carbon-based energy is the only solution to global warming.
We aren’t going to do that. Americans won’t change their lifestyles that radically. Neither will other countries that need to do it in order to make a difference, especially India and China, and even Russia, Kyoto Agreement or none.
CO2 change can be achieved; comfortably, intelligently, affordably, etc.
But Americans are too stubborn. No matter how grisly the picture of the future is painted, they will not change because they simply don’t want to change.
Americans are stubborn. And I should know.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:35 pm