Remarks the Amazon Defense Coalition doesn’t want you to Read

On September 18th, the Amazon Defense Coalition blog published an article titled, “More Smoke from Chevron Bloggers.”  Bloggers accused of being paid by Chevron in the article, including myself, fought back and by September 24th, the Amazon Defense Coalition blog completely deleted our comments from the article.

Blogger Max German got the ball rolling by asking the Amazon Defense Coalition blog if it could provide the list of bloggers they claim are being paid by Chevron.  When the Amazon Defense Coalition posted its list, a few of the bloggers who actually read the article took exception to the characterization and told them so in the comments section that was once provided below the article.  Apparently the Amazon Defense Coalition blog didn’t like what the bloggers were saying and shut down all debate.

Shortly after the Amazon Defense Coalition blog posted its piece, I wrote an article fully responding to each of the Amazon Defense Coalition blog’s accusations.  These are the same accusations that have been repeated for months by Karen Hinton, Amazon Defense Coalition’s spokesperson, Nick Magel, Amazon Watch’s Communications Manager, and Han Shan, campaign coordinator for Amazon Watch, along with their uncritical followers.  The Amazon Defense Coalition posted a comment on their article (which they later deleted) and to my article (which I did NOT delete) that read:

Alex Thorne bristles at the semantics of differentiating between an advisor and a consultant (we stand corrected), yet continues to make unpleasant personal attacks against the Amazon Defense Coalition’s U.S. spokesperson for simply referencing his wife in a press release as a Chevron consultant.

Whether his wife is a “paid consultant” or a “policy advisor”, this does not alter the fact that she is remunerated by Chevron. This, of course, immediately puts into doubt anything Alex Thorne writes in relation to the Ecuadorian case against the oil company.

He may not be directly paid by Chevron for blogging, but the company pays his wife a wage. This ensures his strident partisan attacks against the ADC and obsequious support of Chevron’s continued abuse of the 30,000 rainforest residents who must endure its contamination of their water and lands every single minute of every day of their lives.

THIS is the reality, which we feel comes very much second to Alex Thorne’s hurt feelings because we dared state the truth: that his wife is paid by Chevron.

Here was my response (which the Amazon Defense Coalition canNOT delete):

You completely missed the whole point of Karen Hinton’s press release, which was to suggest that my wife was part of a disinformation campaign, which is a lie. That is why the distinction between “paid consultant” and “policy advisor” is so important. Karen Hinton was under the assumption that my wife was a hired hack, just like her, to engage in spreading false information (just like Hinton) to members of congress. You also missed the point that as a “professional” pr consultant to ADC, Karen Hinton should do a better job of fact-checking her own press releases for accuracy instead of STARTING the personal attacks.

And, Karen Hinton is paid by the ADC, so in your reality, everything she’s ever written for them is in doubt. I don’t have a financial interest in the outcome of the case in Ecuador, she does.

After I posted those comments, the Amazon Defense Coalition blog stopped responding and two days later deleted all comments from their blog. Bloggers Bob McCarty and Zennie Abraham can also take credit for thoroughly ripping apart the Amazon Defense Coalition article.

Again, to read the article that includes the comments that were later deleted by the Amazon Defense Coalition blog click here.