Last week, State Impact Oklahoma and the Center for Public Integrity co-published a report detailing how Oil Overlords have injected $40-million worth of pro-industry propaganda into Oklahoma classroom shales.
Apparently, it's all part of an effort to indoctrinate... errr... educate our state's youth about the wonders of petroleum, and all the great things it's done for human civilization (minus the pollution, environmental destruction, and war).
One tactic the oil industry has used is sending bought-and-paid-for Oklahoma lawmakers to rural elementary schools to distribute and read from kid's books like Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream – a classic literary fable where a young boy has the all-too-common nightmare about what life would be like living in a world without petroleum.
Jennifer Merritt’s first-graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Pryor, Oklahoma, were in for a treat. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, the students gathered in late November for story time with two special guests, state Rep. Tom Gann and state Sen. Marty Quinn.
Dressed in suits, the Republican lawmakers read aloud from “Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream,” a parable in which a Bob the Builder lookalike awakens to find his toothbrush, hardhat and even the tires on his bike missing. Abandoned by the school bus, Pete walks to Petroville Elementary in his pajamas.
“It sounds like you are missing all of your petroleum by-products today!” his teacher, Mrs. Rigwell, exclaims, extolling oil’s benefits to Pete and fellow students like Sammy Shale. Before long, Pete decides that “having no petroleum is like a nightmare!”