Petro Pete
Not about Pete Buttigieg
I know, with a name like this, it would make sense that this post would be about Pete Buttigieg. Especially with the recent Mayor Pete documentary (no, not Ratatouille 2) on Amazon attempting to manufacture consent for another presidential run. Fortunately Krystal Ball has already done the dirty work of watching that so I don’t have to. This post is instead about the Oklahoma Energy Resource Board’s propaganda mascot, Petro Pete.
The OERB is crafting curriculum for teachers which is simply pro Oil and Gas propaganda. This has been going on for some time, but just came to my attention via a segment on Democracy Now. Since I have covered other forms of right wing propaganda targeted at children in previous posts, I felt compelled to write a post about this travesty that is being forced on Oklahoma school children.
According to the OERB Homeroom website, they have trained 17,322 teachers. They have curriculum that is tailored for every grade from K-12. As I am not an Oklahoma teacher who has attended an OERB workshop, so I cannot access most of the curriculum. Here is a description of one of the sets of curriculum:
Curriculum for grade levels 3-6. Fossils to Fuel 2 is a continuation of the original Fossils to Fuel program. Students studying Fossils to Fuel 2 will team up with Petro Pete, OERB’s energy mascot, and learn how to use a dichotomous key to identify Oklahoma rocks. Students will also use an animated geologic computer model to “look” below the surface of Oklahoma, use viscosity tubes to study flow rate, use ordered pairs and a coordinate grid to locate Petro Pete, and study rocks, crude oil, porosity, pulley systems, cohesion and recycling. Educators receive six professional development hours for attending this workshop.
The good news is that apparently Petro Pete has been buried underground. Let’s hope he stays there along with all the oil and gas.
The goal in the Petroleum By Products lesson is:
Students will model crude oil being separated into its fractions by separating black ink into its different colors or fractions. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify their favorite Petroleum By-Product.
None of these lessons mention climate change and the catastrophic events caused by it. They also don’t mention that industrial hemp could be used to replace most Petroleum By-products. No, the only answer is more drilling and fracking. Oil and gas lobbyists are not only writing bills in congress but they’re also writing the curriculum for schools.
Another book available for free online from the OERB is called The Road to Petroville. This isn’t history, this is mythology. It does not make any mention of how the oil boom in Oklahoma was on stolen land. Or how local cattleman William Hale murdered Osage Indians and others in order to take their oil rights. No, in this horrific children’s story, Petro Pete’s grandparents move out to Oklahoma and begin working in a boom town. Grandma runs a boarding house and grandpa works hard in the oil field. And in the happy ending, the oil and gas industry play a huge role in the success of Oklahoma!
Petro Pete needs to be replaced by Comrade Karl. Comrade Karl could teach the children about how the oil and gas industry exploits not only the workers but also the natural resources.
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth — the soil and the labourer. - Comrade Karl, Capital Volume 1, Chapter 15.
There are so many fun topics Comrade Karl could cover. Surplus value, historical and dialectical materialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, how much linen is needed to make a coat…