Readers, a while ago I took the LAPs to task for what I thought was an unwarranted attack on the NOW Legal Defense Fund. This time, it is Chevron’s turn. Here is a recent tweet from James Craig, one of Chevron’s communications people:

https://twitter.com/jbcraig/status/539477187733094400

The link is to a blog post by Roberto Aguilar, in Spanish, that compares President Correa to Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Unless the subject of the comparison is also a Nazi, it’s invariably wrong to make Nazi comparisons. Americans also fall victim to this temptation. Here’s what writer Kurt Eichenwald had to say about it in an American context, and the same reasoning should, I think, be applied in the case of Ecuador:

It is hard to fully comprehend the magnitude of the Nazi death camps and their impact on the lives of untold millions. But, even so, there are a few things I can say for certain: the Nazis, and the Holocaust they brought were nothing like Obamacare. Or the national debt. Or political correctness. Or criticism of economic inequality. Or the Tea Party. Or the Internal Revenue Service. Or the Obama administration. Or the Bush administration. Or any of the other masses of infinitesimal flotsam spewed up in self-pitying and hysterical analogies by vulgarians with more mouth than brain.

And, damn it, how dare so many of you politicians and political commentators and entertainers spit on the ashes of the earth containing the bodies of millions of the slaughtered, by making such asinine comparisons. How dare you belittle unspeakable suffering, how dare you brush aside the emotional torment of survivors, how dare you feed into the Holocaust denialism by pretending that some difference in political opinions is just as bad as the literal torture and destruction of millions of families.

How dare you?

For tweeting Mr. Aguilar’s misguided comparison, I’m sorry to say that Chevron has won this round of “sleaziest PR of the week.”

Update: I want to give Jim Craig and Chevron credit for promptly removing this tweet from Twitter. I think that was the right thing to do.