Making A Wilderness: The Rockefeller Legacy, Chapter VI
Making A Wilderness: The Rockefeller Legacy, Chapter VI
Chapter VI - A Rockefeller Family Conspiracy? Yes, It’s Real
The Rockefeller has been the subject of so many suggestions of conspiracy, it’s hard to keep track or, more importantly, to set out what are real undeniable facts about what the family has been doing routinely, especially on the energy front. They are not nearly as anti-oil as it might seem to sycophants who buy into the delightfully ironic theme that Standard Oil heirs are saving the planet. Nonetheless, the Rockefellers have their own special interests in killing oil and gas in America, as we noted in earlier chapters. They include grift, land and power, about which there is little altruism.
A real-life RICO conspiracy in pursuit of those special interests appears to have been hatched in La Jolla, California. RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for short. Criminal prosecutions, as well as civil lawsuits are permitted under RICO. Why businesses and individuals impacted by what appears to be a clear case of racketeering by the Rockefeller gang is unclear. Exxon itself later filed a civil lawsuit but it does not appear to have been a RICO suit. The current status is unclear but the evidence remains strong.
The basic evidence was laid out in a story in the Wall Street Journal regarding the appalling efforts of former and disgraced New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to implement the NRDC (Rockefeller) agenda through a trumped-up criminal prosecution of Exxon for supposedly hiding knowledge of climate change.
How did this strategy of criminalizing speech (or lack of speech) for shakedown and/or intimidation arise? It arose from an expensive confab held in 2012 in LaJolla, California, which was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The conference was financed by, among others, the V. Kahn Rasmussen Foundation, which is one of Bill McKibben’s (of 350.org) major funders. Both it and 350.org are closely associated with the Rockefeller family which, of course, is the force and the money behind the NRDC gang (with fractivist Rasputin Jay Halfon orchestrating things for them).
A summary report from the session is published here and among the attendees at this elitist pow-wow was a man named Richard Ayers. He is a true “super-lawyer,” not the kind who puts out Yellow Book back pages telling us they are, and he’s the co-founder and current trustee of the NRDC – a bosom buddy of John Adams, the NRDC gang godfather, the chair of the land-scamming Open Space Institute and the father of the Catskill Mountainkeeper, Ramsay Adams and fellow trustee Katherine Adams.
Ayers was there as one of the seasoned veterans or wise ones from the environmental movement to suggest how the powers to be of that movement might go after the oil and gas industry and produce some “outrage” that might rise the ire of the public and create the will to shut them down. Sharon Eubanks was also there as a RICO expert.
Here’s what the summary report said about Ayres and his recommendations to the LaJolla group:
Richard Ayres, an experienced environmental attorney, suggested that the RICO Act, which had been used effectively against the tobacco industry, could similarly be used to bring a lawsuit against carbon producers. As Ayres noted, the RICO statute requires that a claimant establish the existence of a “criminal enterprise,” and at least two acts of racketeering (with at least one having occurred within the past four years). It is not even clear, he added, whether plaintiffs need to show they were actually harmed by the defendant’s actions. As Ayres put it, “RICO is not easy. It is certainly not a sure win. But such an action would effectively change the subject to the campaign of deception practiced by the coal, gas, and oil companies.”
Right there, in that short statement, is the birth of the movement to criminalize the speech of the oil and gas industry and the basis of Eric Schneideman’s pursuit of ExxonMobil, on behalf of the NRDC gang (and its allies, of course). The whole thing has been helpfully advanced along the way by Inside Climate News, which, of course, is yet another part of the Rockefeller enterprise and, therefore, closely connected to the NRDC gang.
Schneiderman had been closely following orders, too, for on page 11 of this 2012 report there was this:
State attorneys general can also subpoena documents, raising the possibility that a single sympathetic state attorney general might have substantial success in bringing key internal documents to light.
The overall strategy couldn’t be more obvious. But, pages 22 and 23 provide a few more insights with this observation by Ayres:
Many participants agreed about the importance of framing a compelling public narrative. Dick Ayres added that the simple act of naming an issue or campaign can be important as well. After acid rain legislation passed in 1990, he recalled, an industry lobbyist told him, “You won this fight 10 years ago when you chose to use the words ‘acid rain.’”
Then there are these comments from others:
Every hazard is unique, with its own personality, so to speak. Does it pose a risk to future generations? Does it evoke feelings of dread? Those differences can make an impact on strategy…
Claudia Tebaldi said she believed “there is a big difference between convincing people there is a problem and mobilizing them. To mobilize, people often need to be outraged.”
The entire strategy was and remains a gigantic game of intimidation to these people; create dread, manufacture images of criminality and conspiracy and mobilize people. And, for what purpose? Well, to create the circumstances that will lead the oil and gas industry to retreat like a cowering dog, leave the Catskills alone and allow strategic parkification – the making of elitist wildernesses everywhere else – to proceed.
Here’s some of what the Wall Street Journal also brought to the surface (emphasis added):
A key meeting in the new push unfolded in January behind the closed doors of a Manhattan office building. The session brought together about a dozen people, including Kenny Bruno, a veteran of environmental campaigns, and Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, two activists who helped lead the successful fight to block the Keystone XL pipeline.
The new campaign’s goals include “to establish in public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm,” according to an agenda of the meeting viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
This new legal strategy stems in part from environmentalists’ frustration at what they see as the inadequacy of recent climate deals. Their hope is to encourage state attorneys general and the U.S. Justice Department to launch investigations and lawsuits that ultimately will change Exxon’s behavior, force it to pay big damages and drive public attention to climate change.
“It’s about helping the larger public understand the urgencies of finding climate solutions,” said Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, which hosted the January meeting. “It’s not really about Exxon.”
…A key part of the activists’ strategy is to seek documents that show otherwise: that Exxon, despite knowing the dangers of climate change, has sought to challenge the scientific consensus. Such revelations would help “delegitimize [Exxon] as a political actor,” the January agenda said…
The activists are focusing on internal Exxon documents that have surfaced in news outlets—including in publications or investigative projects that were funded partly by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund, which favor strong climate action. The media outlets involved—the Los Angeles Times and InsideClimate News—have said the reporting was done without influence by the funding sources.
If you believe that last line – that the reporting was done without influence by the funding sources – you might want to read this story about Inside Climate News, which is nothing more than a Rockefeller outlet. What’s even more interesting is the followup reporting by Energy In Depth and the Washington Free Beacon, which went deeper and provided access to the e-mail invitation that was the focus of the story. Here it is:
There are two aspects to this e-mail that strongly suggest Exxon should have filed a RICO lawsuit against the Rockefeller gang. First, is the overwhelming evidence of intent to damage Exxon’s business or property by what appears to be a racketeering enterprise. The e-mail shows, beyond any doubt, the purpose of this group getting together at Rockefeller headquarters was to destroy Exxon’s reputation, delegitimize the company, force disassociation of others from it and to drive divestment from the business, not to mention making it a political target. This would seem to be racketeering of the highest order – the Mafia style shakedown of a company; for speech no less. The Rockefeller/NRDC gang is engaged in precisely the same kind of activity it strategized alleging against Exxon as part of its 2012 game plan.
The second aspect of this e-mail that bears great attention is the array of players, which exhibits the very sort of conspiracy the Rockefeller/NRDC gang wants to project upon Exxon. It is, moreover, the same set of people involved in fueling fractivism. Here’s a little rundown on each:
Kenny Bruno: Claims to be a “Campaign Coordinator at Corporate Ethics International,” a vaguely purposed non-profit corporation funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Wallace Global Fund(funder of the CELDF, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the Rockefeller’s Sustainable Market Foundation (Jay Halfon, the Fractivist Rasputin’s base of operations). Bruno has also had a long association with Greenpeace, which has received numerous grants from the Rockefellers over the years.
Lee Wasserman: Director of the Rockefeller Family Fund. Previously advisor to The Pew Charitable Trusts (funder of PennFuture and other fractivist enterprises) and former Executive Director of Environmental Advocates of New York where he served as board member (along with Jay Halfon). Also, served with Halfon on board of Rockefeller family’s TechRocks outfit, which later became part of the Network for Good, still another fractivist group.
Bill McKibben: The disingenuous and somewhat creepy leader of 350.org, the Rockefeller’s divestment campaign, where Jay Halfon sits as a director. While adopting a religious-like tone, McKibben not so subtly encourages violence and does the bidding of Steven Rockefeller to insist others must divest their oil and gas investments, at the same time Steven’s son is recreating Rockefeller Oil and investing in the industry overseas. He is also closely aligned with the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation (managed with the help of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund), which he pretended not to know much about in this video.
Jamie Henn: Co-founder and Strategy and Communications Director at 350.org, which is funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund.
Rob Weissman: President of Public Citizen, which is really two organizations, a 501(c)(3) charity and a 501(c)(4) political group, allowing it to raise money through tax-exempt contributions to fund political activity by transferring the money around. Public Citizen receives Rockefeller money and also got $350,000 in 2014 from the Energy Foundation to “build markets for renewable energy.” Its funder, Nat Simons, is a hedge fund investor in renewable energy and a guy with dark money connections to Russia where Steven Rockefeller, Jr. is investing in oil. Public Citizen also provides some of Vera Scroggins legal help and is mounting a campaign to get FERC to fund fractivism.
Dan Cantor: The National Director of the Working Families Party, which is about everything but working families, of course (e.g., climate change, green economy). Who is on the Working Families Party legal team? Well, interestingly enough, “The party has been getting informal advice from Jay Halfon…a ‘close friend and regular informal advisor’ of WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor…”
Bill Lipton: The New York State Director of the Working Families Party and a big backer of Bernie Sanders, the virulent anti-fracking Presidential candidate. Lipton joined with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the NRDC and the Park Foundation to push for public campaign financing in New York.
John Passacantando: Served eight years as executive director of Greenpeace USA. Prior to Greenpeace, he founded and ran Ozone Action, “the country’s first national non-profit focusing exclusively on global warming.” He also served as the executive director of the Florence and John Schumann Foundation and now runs the Eco-Accountability Project. This project has been financed through the Rockefeller’s (and Jay Halfon’s) Sustainable Markets Foundation, with funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Schmidt Foundation (Google founder Eric Schmidt’s fractivist funding arm), the Park Foundation and Jeff Skoll. Passacantando has also served with the Park Foundation’s snob leader Adelaide Park Gomer, on the Greenpeace Fund board.
Kert Davies: Claims to be the founder of the “Climate Investigations Center” and the PolluterWatch program at Greenpeace. He further claims to be “the chief architect of the Greenpeace web project ExxonSecrets” and worked at Ozone Action before that. The CIC appears to be an unincorporated joint venture of Greenpeace (which calls it a partner) and The Guardiannewspaper (which explains Suzanne Goldenberg’s fractivist bias) but provides no information on the organization or its funding sources on its own website, despite making a name for itself criticizing others for not disclosing their funding sources. It does say, in a legal filing, that it is “a not-for-profit association of writers and advocates that uses research to inform the public, the media, and policy makers on energy and climate change issues” – a propaganda outfit. Their attorney in filing was Sharon Eubanks.
Sharon Eubanks: A trial lawyer from the firm of Bordas & Bordas, an expert at employing the civil enforcement provisions of RICO; an expert on racketeering. She was one of two trial lawyers who attended the 2012 La Jolla confab where a racketeering scheme was apparently hatched to go after the oil and gas industry for, of all things, racketeering, using RICO. It was at the behest of NRDC/Rockefeller gang member Richard Ayres, best bud of John Adams, who led the NRDC, chaired the Open Space Institute, gave a job before and after DEC to Joe Martens and created the Catskill Mountainkeeper as a place to park his son Ramsay.
Matthew Pawa: The other trial lawyer who participated in the “La Jolla Junta” (my term) meeting in 2012. Pawa is a global warming tort expert.
Irene Krarup: Executive Director of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, one of the principle funders of 350.org. It share facilities and services with Rockefeller Brothers Fund. It also funds Greenpeace and helped finance the La Jolla Junta war council aimed at using RICO to go after oil and gas.
Carroll Muffett: President and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law. Muffettpreviously served as Executive Director of the Climate Law & Policy Project and Deputy Campaigns Director at Greenpeace USA and before that as a trial lawyer. His organization is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Bradley Campbell: President of the Conservation Law Foundation. A solar energy legal expert and trial lawyer, Campbell also created Swan Creek Energy, LLC (a renewable energy company), following service in the EPA and New Jersey DEP during Democrat administrations. The Conservation Law Foundation, of course, is funded by the Rockefellers, as well as the Energy Foundation.
Won Ha: Program Director, Strategic Communications for the Energy Foundation. The Energy Foundation is a major fractivist outfit, about whom we’ve written here numerous times. It is virtually indistinguishable from the Sea Change Foundation, pushes renewables that benefit Nat Simons hedge fund investments, is closely allied with the Rockefellers and funds numerous fractivist initiatives.
Stephen Kretzmann: Founder and Executive Director of PriceOfOil.org, an anti-oil group. Also served on staff of Greenpeace. His organization is funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund, among others.
Naomi Ages: “Climate liability project lead” at Greenpeace USA. The Greenpeace Fund is financed by, among others, the Park Foundation and has received previous funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The patterns here couldn’t be more apparent. The explosion of news about the effort to target Exxon tells only a small part of what is a huge story; a tight conspiracy of extraordinarily wealthy special interests, among whom the Rockefeller clan is the big gorilla in the room, engaging in a deliberate campaign to impact specific businesses and individuals and shake them down or shut them down. It’s more about fracking than it is about Exxon and the goal is to make a wilderness of the rural Northeast while allowing the Rockefeller family and its friends to develop oil and gas overseas without US competition, while also sucking off the “green energy” teat here at home at the expense of taxpayers and ratepayers.