Chevron’s hypocritical ad campaign

By JOHN P. GAMBOA

The Daily Aztec

San Diego State University newspaper

Issue date: 10/8/07 Section: State of Mind

A new TV commercial includes shots of oceans, blue skies, loving
families, cuddly animals, rising suns, people of all nationalities and
amputees running sprints.

What could it be for?

Greenpeace? No.

Life insurance? No.

It’s an advertisement for the multi-national mega corporation Chevron.
Its new two-and-a-half-minute TV spot, part of its “Power of Human
Energy” campaign and shot and directed by the cinematographer of “Lost
in Translation” and “Being John Malkovich,” boasts that Chevron is not
a “corporate titan” but “human beings doing our share.”

The ad first aired during a break for “60 Minutes” on CBS and gave the
distinct impression that Chevron cares for every living person on Earth
and that it’s committed to helping everyone’s needs.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Chevron is one of the few remaining corporations with ties to the
deadly regime behind Burma (also referred to as Myanmar), thereby
indirectly aiding the killing of Buddhist monks, reporters and
civilians.

In 1997, the Clinton Administration barred all new investments in the
junta-run nation. However, companies already investing inside the
country were exempted because of a grandfather clause. Chevron is one
of the companies that was exempted by the clause and continues business
in the country and pays taxes to the government.

By doing so, they are supporting the human rights violations of the
Texas-sized nation in the last few weeks and its military buildup of
the last few years. Natural gas, an important part of Chevron’s
operations in Burma, brought $2.16 billion to the military regime of
Burma through taxes and operation fees, according to the Human Rights
Watch.

It is imperative that this San Ramon-based corporation get out of Burma
if it wants to continue to call itself an American corporation. The
government is threatening the freedom of millions of people, which is
something that no citizen or user of gas should stand for.

Without the oil pipelines that run from Burma to Thailand, the military
government would not be able to have money to kill civilians.

Chevron should be the first to stop business in Burma because of the
murders of pro-Democracy protesters. Chevron should stand up for the
political ideology that allowed it to become a multi-national
corporation based in the United States.

In order to stop having an American corporation’s oil flow through
pipelines, the U.S. government needs to force Chevron out of Burma,
given its human rights violations. If the United States is willing to
go to war for freedom of itself and others, the least it could do is
prevent a U.S. corporation from financially supporting a freedom-hating
regime.

If it doesn’t want to leave, major restrictions should be imposed on
its ability to sell petroleum inside the United States until its
policies are changed.

Chevron leaving Burma, however, will not stop the violence in the
region. Thai and Chinese petroleum companies will only go in and take
over the void left by the American company, not changing the
socio-political dynamics of the region. It’s more important, though,
that an American company take responsibility to leave an embattled
region if it wants to call itself a corporation, an entity that is made
up of “human beings doing our share” for the rest of humanity.

Even if Chevron chooses to be anti-American and stay in Burma, the
least it could do is stop airing its misleading ad campaign,
championing itself as the “Power of Human Energy.”

Sadly, unless the government steps up – which is unlikely – Chevron
will not change its policies. Chevron will continue to do business how
it wants because one of its former board of directors is now the
Secretary of State of the United States: the corporate-friendly
Condoleezza Rice.

As record-high profits continue to drive the company, there is no
reason to change.

In its ad, Chevron says that humans have an ever increasing demand for
energy, and they plan to be there to help fulfill the need. If
anything, people need to decrease their need for energy, not have the
world’s 14th largest energy corporation tell them that we need to use
more.

Chevron may claim that it cares about the world and its needs, but it
only cares about its own needs: making money. As long as it continues
to spend $63 million in advertising – like it did in 2006, according to
Brandweek – it will be able to convince people that Chevron does care,
which is a very scary thought.

Because it’s unlikely that the U.S. government will step in, Americans
must help in the only way they can: Stop pumping gas at Chevron gas
stations.

-John P. Gamboa is a pre-journalism junior.
Published on Monday, October 8, 2007 by The Daily Camera (Boulder,
Colorado)

 

Tiger Woods and Chevron

Posted to Burmaoil@yahoogroups.com by Edith Mirante
The Nation (USA magazine) May 22 08
When Tiger Met Chevron
Dave Zirin

Woods is a trailblazer and already a legend for his ability to perform
when the spotlight is at its hottest. But he has also established a
reputation for reticence when confronted with the real world off the
greens. For all his cultural capital, Woods has refused to take stands
on issues that should hit close to home, such as restricted golf
courses, or even when the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman suggested young
PGA players “lynch him in a back alley” in a “joke” about how they
might overcome his dominance. Tiger has largely maintained the tight-
lipped silence of a Benedictine monk.

After the lynching comment, ESPN’s Scoop Jackson became so frustrated
with this disciplined quietude he wrote, “Because of who he is, Tiger
Woods has the power to make people listen. Not just hear his words–but
embrace what he has to say…. It’s a stand he needs to take because
people who change the world eventually have to take stands. Whether
strong or silent, good or evil, they take stands not to prove their
beliefs, but to rectify a situation or condition.”

His defenders have always said that behind the scenes Woods has been an
agent for change, and that he shouldn’t be criticized just because he
does his good deeds without media fanfare. They say he wields that
influence through his nonprofit Tiger Woods Foundation. Go to the
website, and a virtual Woods walks right onto your screen and welcomes
you to a place where “kids can achieve anything.” The site boasts:
“more than 10 million young people have benefited from the Tiger Woods
Foundation since its inception in 1996. What started out with limited
access throughout America, now reaches out to young people around the
world.”

Yet now the Foundation is “reaching around the world” in a way that has
human rights activists concerned about a business partnership that
smells like sulfur.

The Tiger Woods Foundation has entered into an extensive five-year
partnership with Chevron Corporation, with the oil and energy giant
becoming the title sponsor of the Tiger Woods Foundation World
Challenge Golf Tournament.

“Chevron has a track record and a commitment to bettering the
communities where they operate,” Woods said in a press release on April
3. And Chevron’s executive vice president chimed in, “Chevron, Tiger
and the Tiger Woods Foundation share similar values…as well as a deep
commitment to make a difference in local communities.”

They have certainly “made a difference in local communities,” but it’s
nothing they should be bragging about, and certainly nothing with which
Woods should want his name attached. Chevron is in full partnership
with the Burmese military regime on the Yadana gas pipeline project,
the single greatest source of revenue for the military, estimated at
nearly $1 billion in 2007, nearly half of all the country’s revenue.
These are the same people who are blocking international aid workers
from assisting the victims of Cyclone Nargis. The death toll has been
estimated at 78,000, but this number can explode as disease spreads and
help isn’t allowed through the military lines. Even the US State
Department has called the actions of the government “appalling.”

Ka Hsaw Wa, co-founder and executive director of EarthRights
International, wrote in an open letter to Woods, “I myself have spoken
to victims of forced labor, rape, and torture on Chevron’s pipeline–if
you heard what they said to me, you too would understand how their
tragic stories stand in stark contrast to Chevron’s rhetoric about
helping communities.” ERI’s request to meet with Woods or someone from
the foundation has been met with silence

But while the Burmese junta’s crimes are localized in Southeast Asia,
Chevron is global. Lawsuits have been issued against Chevron’s toxic
waste dumping in Alaska, Canada, Angola, California. Then there’s the
matter of 18 billion gallons of toxic waste the company has been
accused of dumping in the Amazon.

In a US District Court in San Francisco, the case of Bowoto v. Chevron,
Nigerian plaintiffs have accused Chevron of actually arming and
outfitting Nigerian oil security forces to shoot and kill protesters.
Judge Susan Illston has refused to dismiss the case because, as
Democracy Now! recently reported, “evidence show[s] direct links to
Chevron officials.”

When pressed for comment, Tiger Woods Foundation President Greg
McLaughlin issued this statement to The Nation: “The Foundation’s
vision is to help young people reach their full potential. All our
partners share in this vision, allowing us to make a positive impact in
millions of young lives.” That response, to very serious and very
direct charges, is the golf equivalent of a triple bogey.

President McLaughlin should think more seriously about what Chevron is
and what they do: they pollute, they destroy, they conspire with
dictators, and heaven help anyone who gets in their way. Now they want
to burnish their “brand” by partnering with Tiger Woods. Tiger’s late
father Earl, once said of his son, “He will transcend this game…and
bring to the world…a humanitarianism…which has never been known
before. The world will be a better place to live in…by virtue of his
existence…and his presence.”

The partnership with Chevron makes a mockery of Earl Woods’s hopes.

To use an analogy from a different sport, the ball is now in Tiger’s
court. Will he allow himself to be tamed by corporate interests, or
will he roar?

About Dave Zirin
Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain
Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the forthcoming A
People’s History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and
his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports
Illustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host
of XM Radio’s Edge of Sports Radio.

 

Burma Update

More deaths suspected in Myanmar

Dec 15, ‘07 1:45 PM for everyone

In keeping with my commitment to do more than I have been doing to work for human rights, I am posting the following link to a Reuters new story about Myanmar. Apparently, the United Nations’ underestimated the number of deaths resulting from the government’s response to the recent protests by monks and other activists in that country. Activistists who entered the country as tourists and met with in country activists, say the death toll is at least 70, more than double the UN’s count of 31.

Myannmar or Burma is one of those undeveloped countries blessed (cursed?) with an abundant supply of our planet’s most coveted natural resource, fossil fuel, mostly in the form of natural gas. Thailand, India and China all deal with the repressive military regime in Burma to gain access to those resources. Chevron Oil, the U.S.-based oil company which employed Condoleeza Rice before she joined the first Bush Administration as National Security chief, also has holdings in Burma and continues to work with the cruel regime and has been exempted from current restrictions on U.S. companies’ dealings with the regime because its presence in Burma pre-dates the time parameters in the current restriction.

The regime could not exist without oil and gas revenues. The money is used to fund the extravagant lifestyles of the generals and their friends and to employ police and military personnel to enforce their grip on power in Burma.

The Chevron holdings in Burma were originally owned by Unocal. This is the company which recently settled with 15 Burmese peasants who brought a lawsuit against it for human rights violations and its complicity with the regime in forcing them to work on oil infrastructure projects for no or low pay and under conditions of extreme cruelty.

Milena Kaneva, a Bulgarian national working in Italy as a journalist, produced and directed a film about the lives of Burmese citizens and the court case against Unocal called Total Denial.
The film was released in 2006 and received a special prize for Human Rights from former Czech President Vaclav Havel during the One World Festival in Prague(March 2006).

I mention the lawsuit and Kaneva’s film about it because they point up the linkages between world oil and gas consumption, oil and gas company (and stockholder) profits and our individual choices as consumers and citizens to human rights abuses in Burma.

The 17th Century English churchman and poet John Donne said in a sermon “no man is an island entire of itself” and this is true today. It has always been true; we are connected to all other beings. Acts that may seem invisible to us because they are behaviors encoded in our “lifestyle” are choices we make and our choices affect the lives of unseen others in distant places such as Burma. In his Meditation XVII Donne isn’t writing about blame; he is writing about connection. It is said of England’s Metaphysical poets, of which John Donne was one, that they were the last to write in a poetic language that reflected the union of feeling and reason. This severance of the mind and heart in English poetry was a sort of prophecy. We live in a world which pits our hearts and minds against each other, a world which has erased our connection to unseen others.