The transcript[1] from a secret recording[2] of seasoned propagandist Rick "Dr. Evil" Berman, laying out his strategy for smearing environmentalists and muddyin

The transcript[1] from a secret recording[2] of seasoned propagandist Rick "Dr. Evil" Berman, laying out his strategy for smearing environmentalists and muddying debates on behalf of Big Oil at a Western Energy Alliance[3] summit (in 2014) was an eye opener for me, in regard to this type of enterprise. Among other gems: > You want to get people to say, one of my north stars is to get people to say, "You know, I never thought of it that way before." > Because, if you can get people to say that, here's what you get: instead of getting the 'he said, she said debate,' what you will get with the factual debate, often times, you're going to get into people get overwhelmed by the science and 'I don't know who to believe.' But, if you get enough on your side you get people into a position of paralysis about the issue. > We're not experts and so you don't want them trying to be experts. But if you put enough information out there and say, "Well, it could go to $10.10 but ou could also lose a lot of jobs, the Congressional Budget Office says you can lose a lot of jobs." And again, we got a lot of ads on this thing. > You get in people's minds a tie. They don't know who is right. And you get all ties because the tie basically ensures the status quo. > People are not prepared to get aggressive and in moving one way or another. I'll take a tie any day if I'm trying to preserve the status quo. " But for a fuller insight into this type of PR mindset, the whole transcript (pdf below) is worth reading. 1: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1349204/berman-at-western-energy-alliance-june-2014-doc.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1349... 2: http://boingboing.net/2014/10/31/secret-recording-of-corporate.html http://boingboing.net/2014/10/31/secret-recording-of-corpora... 3: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Western_Energy_Alliance http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Western_Energy_Alliance