Exxon refuses to answer to audit charges at Democracy Now
So much for transparency. Neither Exxon nor Public Interest Watch would share a podium with Greenpeace USA chief Troublemaker John Passacantando and the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the story on the IRS auditing Greenpeace at the behest of PIW, an Exxon front group.
There's a transcript here from Democracy now of the discussion.
Why is it scary is that Exxon isn't accountable for any of this? Because fun fact number 123, kids: Exxon's profits last year were bigger than the annual budgets of 123 countries. Countries are, in theory, accountable for their dirty tricks. Fat cat corporates like Exxon can simply buy the democratic process. They're not even accountable in the marketplace. As Karmabanque points out, their retail sales form such a tiny fraction of their income that we the people can boycott them to our heart's content, and it won't really dent a toenail on the T-rex.
Exxonsecrets keeps track of who Exxon pays to deny climate change and global warming. Personally, I think there ought to be a "Corporate Crimes Court." We can already count deaths attibutable to global warming, and that number is going to soar in coming years. There are individuals behind the policies Exxon, and they deserve to be behind bars just as much as any war criminal.
DailyKos pal Plutonium Page wrote a great blog on the WSJ story when it broke.
Comments
Hi Brian - thanks for the great post, and pointing to the Democracy Now transcript.
I'm also not surprised that Public Interest Watch is remaining silent and won't talk now that they've been exposed. What a bunch of wimps, eh? Typical.
Steve Stecklow gave a good interview, I think. The WSJ occasionally comes up with left-of-center stuff, and this was a fine example of how they can actually do a good job with it.
In the Democracy Now interview, Stecklow said:
"And I did some checking on [PIW]'s tax records, their tax records. They have never disclosed where they receive their funding from..."
I really wonder where their other funding came from? How do you find that out?
I'm just curious in an offhand sort of way, because check out this weirdness from PIW (click my name). The title of the release is:
"DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS CREATING NEW HIV STRAINS"
Hmm, do you think PIW got some $$$ from Big Pharma?
That's not tinfoil hat thinking, if you think about the whole Exxon $$$ donation to PIW...
Anyway, sorry for spamming up your blog (which, by the way, is getting high praise from my husband, who says "Everyone has their own blog, but Brian's is badass!")
Posted by: Plutonium Page | March 29, 2006 07:19 AM