| Update (by Clem): The Center for Biological Diversity, a Verizon customer, is also calling for Verizon Wireless to drop its sponsorship of Blankenship's Labor Day rally. Sign their petition here.
By Carnacki
We're not the only ones wondering why Verizon Wireless is co-sponsoring an anti-environment, anti-labor, anti-mountain rally with coal baron Don Blankenship.
Credo Action has launched a campaign to send a message to Verizon Wireless:
 Why is Verizon Wireless co-sponsoring a pro-coal, anti-environment rally on Labor Day?
It's called the Friends of America Rally and over 25,000 people have already RSVPed to attend a political event to promote climate change denial and mountaintop removal mining.
Massey Energy, a dirty coal company and the most egregious violator of the Clean Water Act in history, is the moving force behind the event.
The rally features speeches by prominent global warming denier Lord Christopher Monckton and conservative pundit Sean Hannity. Ted Nugent will provide musical entertainment.
Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, issued his invitation to the rally via a video onYouTube. In it he says:
"Hello I'm Don Blankenship and I'd like to invite you to a Labor Day rally in West Virginia. We're going to have Hank Williams and have a good time but we're also going to learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs."
We are not making this up. For more information read check out this blog post from our friends at The Nation.
Companies like Verizon Wireless may say they are not making a political statement when they participate in events like these. But it's never just about marketing. After all this is the same company that made a decision to block NARAL Pro-Choice America's text messages from its network. Verizon Wireless has choices. And once again, it's made a very poor one.
Tell Lowell McAdam, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless to issue a public apology and immediately withdraw all support from this extremist, anti-environmental rally.
There's a handy form to send McAdam a message.
Find out too if Verizon Wireless agrees with the event's emcee, Ted Nugent, who declared:
"Obama, he's a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary, You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch" (said while waving a machine gun around."
As co-sponsor of the event, does Verizon Wireless support those kind of statements? And considering how popular Hillary Clinton was in the state in the 2008 campaign - she polled better than Sen. John McCain in the state - that's a lot of West Virginians who might not take kindly to Secretary of State Clinton being called a "worthless bitch" yet alone what Nugent said about Obama.
By co-sponsoring Blankenship's rally, Verizon Wireless is signaling not only is it anti-environment, it's anti-woman and anti-decency. |
