Thuggery and LNG psyops

Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better. George Santayana

Hopefully, everyone is now well aware that promoters of the Jordan Cove LNG project have brought in professional hired guns to coordinate and organize local LNG sycophants to assist in moving public sentiment in favor of the project. Operating under the unfortunate but none the less descriptive moniker, BS Oregon, a full scale psyops campaign is underway to pitch the benefits and at the same time downplay and ignore the handicaps and disadvantages of siting an LNG export terminal on the North Spit of Coos Bay.

In order to succeed, BS Oregon has to sell skeptics on two fundamentally dishonest concepts. The first is to accept that we are helpless and the only way to achieve economic salvation, fund our schools and pave our roads is to put our unquestioning faith in an all powerful, all knowing deity which will appear before us in the form of a publicly traded corporation, God, Inc., or White Knight, LTD, or in the case of Coos County, Jordan Cove Energy Partners. The second task is to convince the peasants that God, Inc is loving and benevolent in spite of all the empirical, statistical and factual evidence to the contrary.

BS Oregon is forming a “coalition” of the already blindly devout who meet in secret to identify and recruit potential disciples and then deploy these “boots on the ground” with orders to cajole, manipulate, humiliate, coerce, bribe with false promises and or threaten into submission any who challenge the official sanctified narrative. Amongst these disciples willing to spread the word without question is the editor of The World newspaper, Clark Walworth, and the newly elected head of the Coos County Democratic Central Committee, Mark McKelvey. The former pens editorials telling his readers to believe in the “glass slipper” and even writes “gospel” songs mimicking the claims of God, Inc., (watch one here).

The latter is so gullible and susceptible to the charms of BS Oregon that in a recent email he parroted wild claims made by these psyops engineers about polling results now showing a trend favoring LNG exports in Oregon. “Scientific polling over the last few years shows a marked shift in support of the Jordan Cove project across the board in Coos County. Even among Democrats, the margins in favor are wide. Polling also shows that metro Portland and the urban areas of the Willamette Valley — former strongholds of opposition — now favor exporting LNG from Oregon.” When pressed for a source of his allegations McKelvey replied, “I don’t know who did it. I learned about it from Ray Bucheger from the Chamber meeting. He’s sending it to me. I’ll pass it on when I get it.” Finally, McKelvey acknowledged in a follow up email that Bucheger admits the polls are “too small” to be considered valid.

BS Oregon is promising that Jordan Cove LNG will kick-start the economy of Klamath, Coos, Douglas, and Jackson Counties with a combined investment of $7.5 billion that includes the 234 mile gas pipeline. The BS site promises 750 permanent family wage jobs across Southwest Oregon upon the completion of the project but offers no analysis of the jobs lost as a consequence of reduced property values, lost timber and environmental degradation. BS promises “$32 million a year in taxes or payments in lieu of taxes for the first three years, and $42 million to $52 million a year thereafter”, with no explanation of how this money is distributed throughout the four counties or of the initial taxpayer investment in the form of credits and exemptions that is required to kick-start the kick-start.

One only need look at the economic indicators in predominantly white, Cameron Parish, LA, home of Sabine Pass LNG to project the likely outcome for Coos County, Oregon. The Sabine Pass LNG Terminal commenced service in April 2008 and was first conceived as an import regasification facility and is by capacity, the largest in the world. [Like Jordan Cove LNG, whose management originally called exporting LNG a “stupid idea”, Sabine Pass LNG has since shifted gears and applied for and been granted export permits].

At roughly 1,200 square miles the parish is smaller than Coos County and the Sabine Pass terminal which dwarfs the proposed Jordan Cove facility was supposed to bring jobs and kick-start the Cameron Parish economy yet the already rural population has declined by almost 30% to only 6,702 persons in 2012. Because the parish has no incorporated cities specific details are hard to extrapolate but the nearby town of Port Arthur, Texas, just across the river is a good indicator. Port Arthur lists on its Wikipedia page as one of its key economic assets both its refining capacity and the nearby Sabine Pass LNG terminal and yet the percentage of people living below the poverty level is 26% and its unemployment rate is almost 15%.

[Port Arthur claims to be “in the early stages of an economic boom” and if you read the Coos County Wikipedia page you will find similar optimistic claims attributed to possible LNG exports and “a mineral sands reclamation project headed by Oregon Resources Corporation”.]

Part of the psyops strategy is to secure endorsements from “stakeholders” such as the pro-LNG resolution proffered by IBEW president and “bird flipper”, Bob Westerman which will be considered at the next Coos County Democratic Central Committee meeting in May. All supportive resolutions from acceptable organizations will be exploited via free publicity offered as news in The World and other willing media.

All of this is normal and because this isn’t our first rodeo, even the thuggery we have witnessed on this very blog and further detailed below, is expected. George Santayana also said, “those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it”, therefore I encourage everyone to read Hard Times in Paradise, Plundertown, USA: Coos Bay Enters the Global Economy and, of course, The JOB Messiahs if we are to avoid repeating past mistakes. Keep in mind the corporate saviors documented in these books have a lot in common with Jordan Cove LNG which is owned by Veresen, a Canadian investment group and Sabine Pass LNG owned by Cheniere Energy whose investment partners are international, none have any native ties to this area.

McKelvey has made no secret that he supports the Jordan Cove LNG project and is actively working behind the scenes with BS Oregon to secure a pro LNG endorsement from the Coos County democrats. To this end he has forwarded email correspondence from registered democrats who are also LNG opponents as an example of what BS will need to counter. McKelvey has also cautioned one well known LNG opponent and long time union activist who is running for a non partisan seat on the SOCC Board to ratchet down criticism or risk losing union endorsements. Last week I invited McKelvey to explain not why he supports exporting LNG from Coos Bay but specifically why he is pushing the committee to pass a resolution in favor of LNG and whether Arnie Roblan and Caddy McKeown approve of his efforts. As of this writing I have yet to hear back from him but I have seen Bucheger’s rebuttal to an earlier resolution opposing the project, including this exchange.

Whereas, security and expedient repairs of the proposed Pacific Connector Pipeline is not feasible across
the full path of the pipeline, which includes terrains both rugged and unstable, in the event of damages caused by nature or man.
[LNG Opponent: Still true]

[RAY: THE PIPELINE WILL BE EMBEDDED WITH CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN IDENTIFY AND ISOLATE EVEN THE SMALLEST PROBLEMS WITH THE PIPELINE].

Perhaps Bucheger is as gullible and naive as McKelvey or perhaps they are both stretching the claim to suit a desired outcome. The “cutting edge technology” claim is a constant throughout all development schemes. We heard it from ORC, we hear it with regard to the Keystone XL Pipeline despite the devastating and very public failures of late and even the West, Texas fertilizer plant that exploded killing 15 people told state regulators that it was setup so it couldn’t possibly explode. We heard it from BP and other offshore oil drillers about their cutting edge “blow out preventers”.

BS has aligned itself with the chamber cabal and surrounded itself with low level operatives who are willing to resort to thuggery in the form of threats and intimidation and offensive gestures to produce the illusion of community support for a project that historical and statistical evidence shows will produce no better economic results in Coos County than in Cameron Parish or Nigeria, or Indonesia or Azerbaijan.