Eye Recommend --- Richard Berman Energy Industry Talk Secretly Taped

Richard Berman, political consultant

RICHARD BERMAN ENERGY INDUSTRY TALK SECRETLY TAPED, by Eric Lipton --
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/us/politics/pr-executives-western-energy-alliance-speech-taped.html?_r=0

You have to love it when another rich guy with a misplaced moral compass gets caught by someone using the exact tactics he advocates.

"If the oil and gas industry wants to prevent its opponents from slowing its efforts to drill in more places, it must be prepared to employ tactics like digging up embarrassing tidbits about environmentalists and liberal celebrities, a veteran Washington political consultant told a room full of industry executives in a speech that was secretly recorded. 

The blunt advice from the consultant, Richard Berman, the founder and chief executive of the Washington-based Berman & Company consulting firm, came as Mr. Berman solicted up to $3 million from oil and gas industry executives to finance an advertising and public relations campaign called Big Green Radicals.

The company executives, Mr. Berman said in his speech, must be willing to exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger and turn them against the environmental groups.  And major corporations secretly financing such a campaign should not worry about offending the general public because 'you can either win ugly or lose pretty,' he said.

I find this concept, which has bled into so many aspects of our society--especially our political sphere --distasteful in the extreme.  "Fair" has become a discounted ethic where winning is the only thing that counts. 

'Think of this as an endless war,' Mr. Berman told the crowd at the...event (that was) sponsored by the Western Energy Alliance, a group whose members include Devon Energy, Halliburton and Anadarko Petroleum, which specialize in extracting oil and gas through hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. 'And you have to budget for it.'"

Subtext:  "Give me lots of money!"

"What Mr. Berman did not know--and what could now complicate his task of marginalizing environmental groups that want to impose limits on fracking--is that one of the energy industry executives recorded his remarks and was offended by them.

'That you have to play dirty to win,' said the executive, who provided a copy of the recording and the meeting agenda to The New York Times under the condition that his identity not be revealed. 'It just left a bad taste in my mouth.'

Mr. Berman (discussed) Big Green Radicals, which has already placed a series of intentionally controversial advertisements in Pennsylvania and Colorado, two states where the debate over fracking has been intense...

...A spokeswoman for Mr. Berman confirmed that he gave the speech, but said he would have no comment on its contents.

Mr. Berman is well known in Washington for his technique of creating nonprofit groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom that secretly collects corporate donations to finance the aggressive...campaigns his team conceives.  They are intended to undermine his opponents, like labor unions and animal rights groups.

'I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions--that's my offense,' Mr. Berman said in his speech.  'I am just trying to figure out how I am going to reduce their brand.'...

..(Company vice president Jack) Hubbard discussed how he had done detailed research on the personal histories of members of the boards of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to try to find information that could be used to embarrass them."

The guy tries to ruin people's lives for a living. His mother must be so proud.

"Mr. Berman repeatedly boasted about how he could take checks from the oil and gas industry executives--he said he had already collected six-figure contributions from some of the executives in the room--and then hide their role in funding his campaigns.

'People always ask me one question all the time: "How do I know that I won't be found out as a supporter of what you're doing?"' Mr. Berman told the crowd.  'We run all of this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insultated from having to disclose donors.  There is total anonymity.  People don't know who supports us.'"

In other words, we know what we're doing is wrong and you know what we're doing is wrong; but as long as you pay us and nobody finds out, who cares?

"What is unclear is if the hardball tactics that Mr. Berman has pitched will succeed in places like Colorado.  Already, The Denver Post editorial page, generally supportive of the oil and gas industry, has criticized Mr. Berman's tactics...

...At least one of the major oil and gas companies that had executives at the event, Anadarko, a Texas-based company that operates 13,000 wells in the Rocky Mountain region, now says that it did not agree with the suggestions that Mr. Berman offered...

...Mr. Berman probably appreciates the criticism.  As he explained in his remarks, what matters is increasing the number of people who see his work which is part of the reason he intentionally tries to offend people in his media campaigns.

'They characterize us in a campaign as being the guys with the black helicopters,' he explained.  'And to some degree, that's true.  We're doing stuff to diminish the other sides' ability to operate.'"

What a horrible way to waste a lifetime.