American Flags Not Welcome At Oil Astroturf Rally
American Flags Not Welcome At Oil Astroturf Rally
At a “grassroots” rally organized by the American Petroleum Institute in Houston on Tuesday, activists bearing American flags were turned away. Oil company employees were bused in to the “Energy Citizens” gathering to hear billionaire Drayton McLane Jr. attack President Barack Obama’s clean energy agenda as an economy-destroying energy tax. However, grassroots tea-party activists told Public Citizen Texas that they and their American flags were refused entry to the company picnic:
ACTIVIST: They said, “We won’t let you have an American flag either.” They said they won’t let you have this, and then the guy touched this, the American flag.
ANOTHER ACTIVIST: I got an email from Freedomworks saying, “Come, it’s free, free food,” doodah doodah. And then I get here and they say, “Well, it’s against fire code to let people in the door.” And then, they let all these people in. Granted, one of the people was Drayton McLane. He’s got more money than God, so, I guess…
Watch it:
The activists explained that they were invited by Dick Armey’s Astroturf organization Freedomworks, one of the participating organizations in the new Energy Citizens coalition. While the activists were locked out, employees of the public corporations Chevron, Anadarko Energy, Halliburton, ConocoPhillips, and others were “invited to participate” and bused to the event on company time.
At the company picnic, Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane defended his billionaire lifestyle, saying, “We need to preserve this way of life.” Inheriting much of his wealth, McLane made billions by selling his grocery business to Wal-Mart. In January 2008, McLane received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service for showing a “deep concern for the common good beyond the bottom line.” National Black Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Harry Alford, who recently accused Barbara Boxer of racism, was also a featured speaker.
15 Responses to “American Flags Not Welcome At Oil Astroturf Rally”
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It is absolutely amazing what these sleaze bags will resort to to kill any success this President might have and the numbers of people who are being led around by the nose seemingly enjoying the entire show they are participating in. I guess the only cure for ’stupid’ is obliteration. I just don’t want them to take me down with them.
August 20th, 2009 at 7:13 pmOILY Koch Industries wants to defeat Obama on Healthcare to weaken the Climate Bill, so they spend a fortune sneakily under fictitious names. Not only do they fund “Americans for Prosperity” but then “Americans for Prosperity” in turn funds 289 websites of assorted names puffing themselves up to look like a big crowd.
truthiest.blogspot.com/2009/08/koch-industries-astroturfing-against.html
AFP then is JoinPatientsNow.com and PatientsFirst.com and TAXPAYERMINUTE.COM, and HOTAIRTOUR.ORG, and defendingthedream.org, and rightonline.com…
Koch’s also fund the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party crowd, like the LEADED TEA PARTY (bring your guns) sponsored by MEDICAL Development Intl boss, AMERICANS FOR PROSPERTY FLORIDA CHAPTER Chairman. Don’t say there’s no connections between the Gun Nuts, the Tea Baggers, the Town Hall Health Care Disrupters, Astroturfers and OILY Koch Industries.
August 20th, 2009 at 7:52 pmtruthiest.blogspot.com/2009/08/tea-party-gun-nut-wants-armed-anti.html
All aspects of the so-called debates about all of Presient Obama’s policies, are all about the disdain of having an African-Ameircan as President of this Country. It is validation that racism always takes precedent over patriotism. Perhaps, it is only Walter Cronkite who would say: “…and that’s the way it is…”.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:46 pm@SMAC25
No, it is mostly about greed for money and power from corporate and conservative sectors of society, respectively (with, of course, a lot of overlap between the two). There has been a refusal of many on the right to accept being out of power in modern history, demonstrated by the disturbing rise of right-wing militias, hate groups, and paranoid extremists during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama. There are a few different resources for trying to get some understanding of that.
But when Sen. Jim DeMint compares Obama to Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, or FOX News’ [insert name here] accuses Obama of racism or “deep-seated anger” and radicalism or taking money from “hard-working” Americans to give to “lazy” people or “illegals,” or when the birthers/teabaggers question the president’s religion or legitimacy, it is pretty much entirely racism. Racism colors many aspects of criticism of Obama, no doubt, but criticism of Sarah Palin, someone deserving of more than a little scorn, has far too often been colored by sexism, as well (see: David Letterman).
August 21st, 2009 at 1:04 amwhile i agree that much of the criticism of obama have to do with racism, i have to disagree about sarah being colored by sexism…as a woman, her nomination as v.p. was a deep insult, not because she was a woman, but because while she is politically crafty and instinctive, she is dumb as a post. she was chosen because she is a stereotype of the dumb blonde, it is not sexism to understand that.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:45 amThe really sad part of the rally that was the subject of this article is the play it got in the Houston media. Like most astroturf events (and what better city to host an astroturf event than Houston?), it was portrayed as a “citizen’s gathering” where “local residents” gathered to protest policy. And there was no mention of any opposing viewpoints.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:49 amI’m sorry to say that I once worked for Conoco (Phillips). Back then the company was owned by Dupont which made that collective mess what may have been the worst corporate polluter on earth. Now the same company seems to embrace much the same stance: The more money we make the worse off the world will be and when the whole thing crashes we’ll have all the money and we can live underground just like on TV. Like I said, I was payed to be an oil company jerk and I am not proud of it.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:25 pmWhich just goes to show you what “the Four Hundred” considers to be so-called “Real Americans,” or their “representatives as of right:”
The Four Hundred themselves.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:01 pmWell, we can stop this nonsense using this method.
http://www.badrepublicans.com/images/solutionf.jpg
Problem is, it will take a while to kick in.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:37 pmIts funny that Obama lets gun toting right wing extremists who threaten to water the tree of liberty with the blood of liberals disrupt free speech with insults, insane rants with the threat of firearms, but Big Oil won’t even let people in with the United States flag. How much more info do we need to see these goons are anti-American conmen who use Big Government to rip off the US tax payer and who also despise free speech? This is the face of fascism, whereby only rights apply only to America-hating CEO’s , and laws apply only to the America-loving peasantry. This is the epitome of Enronism. To think I used to be a republican. In my defense, that was before the GOP became a full-time American hating Christofascist extremist cult.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:34 pmThe shadow movement which guides the government in the direction that movement wants government to go is composed of the military oil complex.
The will of the people is no obstacle nor consideration to these rogues.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:19 pmthat is ridiculous. no american flags allowed in our own country? i think all flags should be allowed everywhere and anywhere people want to display them.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:27 pmNot that it really matters, but I’m a day late on this board and will never be read. Bill m (at #10) provides the soucience:
“In my defense, that was before the GOP became a full-time, American-hating, Christofascist, extremist cult.”
This is full flame in our press and he has it right. I can only hope climate change forces us into a larger context because I really dispised reading Gibbons Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 amYeh, the slobbering right wing moron reading the book “Liberal Fascism” has more insight!
Great that ignorant teabaggers get locked out of “their” Noble Republican oil company rally..
And, where are the semi-automatic weapons?
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:15 am@choupachoup
As I said, Sarah Palin is deserving of almost unending criticism and contempt, but it is the nature of the criticism which sometimes descends into sexism. Just as a white politician wouldn’t be subject to the “half-breed Muslin” born in Mombosa-nonsense or the various racial code-words, a male politician wouldn’t be subject to some of the attacks against Palin (”slutty stewardess?”. But the majority of sexist attacks on Palin, which themselves are a small minority of the attacks on her, come from comedians and some in the MSM, who just see things through a misogynistic prism and treated Hillary Clinton the same way. In contrast, the racial attacks on Obama have come from not only some comedians and the MSM, but from practically every part of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.
My point is that not all criticism can be dismissed as racist or sexist because some of it is racist or sexist, even when it is probably a plurality of the criticism directed at President Obama. And fuck Sarah Palin. She is a dishonest, unintelligent, and generally repugnant person; all of this can be expressed without resorting to all-too-common misogynistic language.
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:09 pm