Commercial Alert tells Smithsonian to stop promoting oil drilling in Alaska

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert			February 25, 2002

Commercial Alert demanded today that Smithsonian Institution stop acting
as an "advocacy arm of the oil industry," and quit distributing a
four-page National Museum of Natural History "Museum Guide" with a
full-page ad from Phillips Petroleum Company.  In the ad, Phillips touts
its environmental record in drilling for oil in Alaska.  

Commercial Alert made its demand in the following letter to Smithsonian
Secretary Lawrence Small.  

Dear Secretary Small:

As you know, the question of oil drilling in Alaska is a contentious
political issue.  Just this week-end, President Bush renewed his call to
open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development.  People
concerned about the environment strongly object to this move.  Congress
will be embroiled in the issue in the weeks ahead.

So now we open the four-page "Museum Guide" for the Smithsonian's
National Museum of Natural History and what do we find on the back? A
full-page pitch from the Phillips Petroleum Company on the virtues of
oil drilling in Alaska. The ad shows a polar bear cub nestling safely on
its parent. When Phillips drills in Alaska, the ad copy touts, the
environmental impacts are so minimal that "it's like we've never been
there at all."

Secretary Small, have you no shame?  First you turn the Smithsonian into
a mouthpiece for corporate hucksterism, featuring, for example, the
"General Motors Hall of Transportation."  Now you are turning it into an
advocacy arm of the oil industry as well.  (If you think the Phillips ad
has nothing to do with the current fight over drilling in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, then we have a bridge we'd like to sell you.) 

The mission of the institution you now direct is not to increase the
amount of oil drilling in our nation's wilderness areas, nor is it to
seek the further diffusion of Big Macs, SUVs and other corporate
products into the nation's culture.  It is, rather, to promote the
"increase and diffusion of knowledge."

If you have different ideas, then you should not be leader of the
Smithsonian.  If you wish to promote corporate political agendas and
products, then perhaps you should work for a corporation.  But since you
still are the Secretary of the Smithsonian, you should uphold the
mission of this great institution.

Stop the distribution of this lobbying flier disguised as a museum
guide. At once.

Sincerely,

Gary Ruskin
Executive Director

<------letter ends here----->
BACKGROUND:
A copy of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History "Museum
Guide" is available at:
<http://www.commercialalert.org/smithsonian/NMNHmuseumguide.html>.

In January, Commercial Alert and a coalition of 170 scholars and
activists sent letters to the Smithsonian Institution's governing Board
of Regents, asking them to protect the Smithsonian from commercialism,
and to fire Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small for commercializing the
Smithsonian.  The text of that letter is available at:
<http://www.commercialalert.org/smithsonian/commercialism.html>.

Background materials on commercialism at the Smithsonian are available
at:
<http://www.commercialalert.org/smithsonian/index.html>.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Please tell Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small not to turn the
Smithsonian Institution into an advocacy arm of the oil industry, and to
stop distributing the National Museum of Natural History "Museum Guide"
with the Phillips Petroleum Company ad.

Secretary Small's email address is <smalllm@si.edu>.  His fax is (202)
357-2515, and his phone is (202) 357-1846.


Commercial Alert's mission is to keep the commercial culture within its
proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and
democracy.  Commercial Alert's website is at
<http://www.commercialalert.org>.

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This note is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/commercial-alert/2002/000105.html>.

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<https://www.egrants.org/donate/index.cfm?ID=2404-0|1236-0>.

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
-- 
Gary Ruskin | gary@essential.org 
Commercial Alert | http://www.commercialalert.org
Congressional Accountability Project | http://www.congressproject.org
phone: 503.235.8012 | fax: 503.235.5073

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