August 26, 2008 08:48 PM UTC

Jack & Jill pwns industry "racial justice" front group

• 4 Comments
• by: Hotspur

Every circus has a sideshow, so it was mildly interesting to see that the oil industry agitprop machine will be trying to get the media’s attention at the DNC today by outing ….(drum roll)…. the “Punishers of the Poor”(TM)

Niger Innis of C.O.R.E. has been adopted by the hard-right GOP-industrial complex as their champion in the fight against against environmental injustice – the kind that  naturally flows from not thrashing each and every square inch of America in search of oil. (That will lower energy prices for the poor, of course.)

Jill Tubman of Jack & Jill politics cuts through the hooey:

Exxon Pimps out C.O.R.E. on Energy/Enviro

You may remember this post that I did earlier explaining how Exxon bought up old school civil rights group C.O.R.E. to serve as a mouthpiece for their dirty agenda against energy efficiency and climate protection. Because apparently smart energy development = a war on poor black folk.

Well, one of the things that happens at the conventions is that the opposition comes to town too and holds their own counter-messaging press conferences. Just yesterday I was hanging over at the Huffington Post’s media area in Giant Inadequately Air Conditioned Media Tent 5 (they calls it a “Pavillion” but I’m telling you what it really is) and these two cats from ultra-conservative Focus on the Family tried to muscle in and use HuffPo’s internets – the nerve of these people! Baratunde, Seth and I chased em off – Git!

http://www.jackandjillpolitics…

More after the jump….  

In her previous post, Jill, who in real life owns a digital consulting business, laments the fall of this venerable civil rights institution.

The Congress of Racial Equality was once one of the strongest, most dynamic civil rights organizations around. James Farmer is an American hero and his early achievements are portrayed in the Denzel Washington movie “The Great Debaters”. C.O.R.E. was first founded by a multiracial group of young people committed to the principles of Mahatma Gandhi. How far from Gandhi’s message have they traveled.

http://www.jackandjillpolitics…

C.O.R.E.’s activities in Colorado have been linked at the hip to the Astroturfwellian group “Colorado Consumers for Affordable Energy,” which is run by former GOP state Rep. Rob Fairbank of Littleton. Fairbank, also the former Political Director of the Colorado Republican Party, is  founding partner of Politically Direct, a Denver-based political consulting firm that “specializes in voter ID, GOTV, and voter contact programs.”

Fairbank recruited Bishop Phillip Porter, himself the founder of something called the “All Nations Pentecostal Church of God in Christ” in Aurora, to be his front man.

Let’s listen to the Bishop fulminate against Godless regulations:  

“Consumers and low-income folks don’t have any idea that this is going on, or that we are about to get hit with huge price increases if these regulations go through,” Bishop Porter said. “We feel the time has come to stand up for the millions of Coloradans and send out the alarm. It’s time to get organized and fight back.”

http://www.coloradoconsumers.o…

When C.O.R.E. isn’t rallying valiantly to the defense of the oppressed industrial-political-drilling machine in Colorado, it’s also taken strong stands against things like clean energy & energy efficiency. Wouldn’t you know that happens to be the most effective way to actually liberate Bishop Porter’s flock from the shackles of high fossil-fuel prices and protect low-income neighborhoods in cities like New Orleans from global warming.

The word:

So Exxon is propping up C.O.R.E. to criticize Democrats on actually wanting to do something about climate change and alternative energy saying it will hurt poor black people somehow (how is not really made clear). It’s an environmental injustice argument gone sour. Katrina showed us all how poor black and brown people will fare if we don’t address climate change immediately.

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