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Nationalize America's Resources~"Common Wealth"
America, Fight Back: Nationalize the Oil Industry!
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2008-04-26 03:26. Media
By William Hughes
“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.” - Ambrose Bierce
Are you sick and tired of being at the mercy of the grasping plutocrats who run Big Oil? Gasoline is now selling at $3.50 a gallon, as the price of a barrel of oil nears $120, with no end in sight to further increases. Meanwhile, the American economy is sinking faster than the Titanic. The dollar, too, is in sharp decline. Mortgage foreclosures are at depression era highs. Over three million middle class jobs have been exported in recent years. The Wall Street wise guys are in near-panic mode. The Fed, after 19 years of Alan Greenspan’s gross ineptness, is held in deep contempt. Yet, Big Oil keeps sucking off the American consumer, with a devil-be-damned attitude, while acting like a law unto itself. I say: Fight back America and nationalize the oil industry!
Take ExxonMobil for instance, Big Oil’s bully boy. “[It] inspires fear... in the industry for its ruthlessness... In 2007, it recorded the most profitable year of any firm in American history, with net income of $40.6 billion.” (1) In 2006, the big three, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips posted combined “windfall profits of $72 billion.” In 2006 alone, ExxonMobil generated “$108 million profits a day, or $4.5 million an hour.” (2) It goes without saying that the Iraq War has also been a Las Vegas-like jackpot for the U.S. oil companies. So, too, do their profits go up when the Bush-Cheney Gang threatens war with Iran.
According to Bill Van Auken, Big Oil owes its record profits to “gouging at the gas pumps...The fleecing of average working people on gasoline sales is supplemented by an array of corporate welfare measures, tax breaks and royalty relief worth tens of billions of dollars...The massive oil profits once again point to the necessity of taking these corporations, which promote social inequality, militarism and the destruction of the environment, ‘out of private hands’ and turn them into ‘private utilities.’ Only in this way can society begin to confront the urgent dangers posed to the future of humanity by war and climate change.” (2)
Legal background: In 1952, during the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman ordered the seizure of the steel industry. He said: “The steel industry has never been so profitable as it is today...The steel companies now want to double their money.” (3) Doesn't’ that line sound familiar? In 1962, President John F. Kennedy was successful after some arm-twisting to get the Steel Industry to maintain prices, without resorting to a government take over. Although the Supreme Court struck down Truman’s Executive Order to nationalize the steel industry as unconstitutional, it was only by a 6 to 3 vote. The majority made it clear, however, that its decision might have been different had an Act of Congress authorized the president to take such action.
The dissenting justices emphasized that the president did have such powers even without congressional approval, assuming a national emergency existed. They wrote: The president isn’t a “automaton impotent to exercise the powers of Government at a time when “the survival of the Republic itself may be at stake...The steel mills were seized ‘for a public use.’ The power of eminent domain...is an essential attribute of sovereignty and has long been recognized as a power of the federal government.” (4)
As for the Bush-Cheney Gang doing anything about Big Oil’s bloated profiteering, well, just forget about it! We will have to wait until these bums are out of office. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in Bush’s two presidential elections, oil and gas companies gave Republicans, “79 percent of their $61.5 million in contributions.” (5) In addition, President Bush family’s ties to “Big Oil” go back generations, as do V. P. Dick Cheney’s. (6)
More on Big Oil’s obscene profits. Published reports show that in 2007, the CEO of Halliburton earned about $8,300 an hour, while the CEO of ExxonMobil raked in about $13,700 an hour. When, in April, 2008, Congress went through the motions, at a public hearing, of demanding that Big Oil justify its windfall profits, its CEOs replied that they are in a boom-and-bust industry and need the huge profits to “pay for future oil development.” Incidentally, the surge in oil prices may spark a worldwide recession.
At press time, soaring oil prices have forced some airlines in the U.S. out of business and into bankruptcy. This means less competition. Also, an industry spokesperson said the public should expect “more delays” and “higher fares” this coming summer. Delta’s CEO, Richard Anderson said: “Domestic carriers would need to raise fares ‘by 15 to 20 percent’ just to break even.” (7)
Globally, the trend is towards nationalization of the oil industry. Presently, this is the situation in Russia, China, Venezuela, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Libya, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, and mostly recently Ecuador, to list some of the key Petrostates. According to Mother Jones: “State-run firms exercise exclusive domain over roughly 77 percent” of the world’s oil. (1)
On the home front, fuel, particularly the cost of diesel fuel, has now surpassed labor as the prime cost for the trucking industry. This is going to mean higher food prices. The truckers’ cost will be pass down the line and will eventually hit the consumer--the working class stiff and the poor. Cabbies are feeling the pinch, too, because of the rising cost of gas. “Their take-home pay is thinner than it use to be.” Retailers are starting to complain, also, because shoppers are beginning to stay home rather than get into the car and ride out to the mall. Store owners are trying to “figure out a way” to get people back into their cars. (8)
Finally, I think Mike Whitney hit the nail on the head about this subject matter in a piece for Counterpunch, nearly two years ago. He wrote: “Nationalizing the oil industry should be the central tenet of any progressive political movement. Evidence of the industry’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq as well as its obvious complicity in corrupting the political system should provide ample proof that the oil giants are ‘a clear and present danger to democracy’ and need to be put under state control.” (9)
Notes:
1. Mother Jones, May/June, 2008, “Put a Tyrant in Your Tank,” by Joshua Kurlantzick.
2. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/oil-f03.shtml and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm
3. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,889428-2,00.html
4. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/youngstown.... and
http://www.historycentral.com/documents/Youngstown.html
5. “Big Oil’s Big Time Looting” by Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe, 09/02/05.
6. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,738196,00.html
7. Baltimore Sun, April 23, 2008, From Wire Reports
8. Baltimore Sun, April 22, Adam Schreck
9. http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05012006.html and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Lr17usifg and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2HCR616ETI and
“The Sorrows of Empire” by Chalmers Johnson.
©2008, William Hughes, All Rights Reserved.
William Hughes is a video and print journalist. His videos can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=liamh2.
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2008-04-26 03:26. Media
By William Hughes
“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.” - Ambrose Bierce
Are you sick and tired of being at the mercy of the grasping plutocrats who run Big Oil? Gasoline is now selling at $3.50 a gallon, as the price of a barrel of oil nears $120, with no end in sight to further increases. Meanwhile, the American economy is sinking faster than the Titanic. The dollar, too, is in sharp decline. Mortgage foreclosures are at depression era highs. Over three million middle class jobs have been exported in recent years. The Wall Street wise guys are in near-panic mode. The Fed, after 19 years of Alan Greenspan’s gross ineptness, is held in deep contempt. Yet, Big Oil keeps sucking off the American consumer, with a devil-be-damned attitude, while acting like a law unto itself. I say: Fight back America and nationalize the oil industry!
Take ExxonMobil for instance, Big Oil’s bully boy. “[It] inspires fear... in the industry for its ruthlessness... In 2007, it recorded the most profitable year of any firm in American history, with net income of $40.6 billion.” (1) In 2006, the big three, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips posted combined “windfall profits of $72 billion.” In 2006 alone, ExxonMobil generated “$108 million profits a day, or $4.5 million an hour.” (2) It goes without saying that the Iraq War has also been a Las Vegas-like jackpot for the U.S. oil companies. So, too, do their profits go up when the Bush-Cheney Gang threatens war with Iran.
According to Bill Van Auken, Big Oil owes its record profits to “gouging at the gas pumps...The fleecing of average working people on gasoline sales is supplemented by an array of corporate welfare measures, tax breaks and royalty relief worth tens of billions of dollars...The massive oil profits once again point to the necessity of taking these corporations, which promote social inequality, militarism and the destruction of the environment, ‘out of private hands’ and turn them into ‘private utilities.’ Only in this way can society begin to confront the urgent dangers posed to the future of humanity by war and climate change.” (2)
Legal background: In 1952, during the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman ordered the seizure of the steel industry. He said: “The steel industry has never been so profitable as it is today...The steel companies now want to double their money.” (3) Doesn't’ that line sound familiar? In 1962, President John F. Kennedy was successful after some arm-twisting to get the Steel Industry to maintain prices, without resorting to a government take over. Although the Supreme Court struck down Truman’s Executive Order to nationalize the steel industry as unconstitutional, it was only by a 6 to 3 vote. The majority made it clear, however, that its decision might have been different had an Act of Congress authorized the president to take such action.
The dissenting justices emphasized that the president did have such powers even without congressional approval, assuming a national emergency existed. They wrote: The president isn’t a “automaton impotent to exercise the powers of Government at a time when “the survival of the Republic itself may be at stake...The steel mills were seized ‘for a public use.’ The power of eminent domain...is an essential attribute of sovereignty and has long been recognized as a power of the federal government.” (4)
As for the Bush-Cheney Gang doing anything about Big Oil’s bloated profiteering, well, just forget about it! We will have to wait until these bums are out of office. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in Bush’s two presidential elections, oil and gas companies gave Republicans, “79 percent of their $61.5 million in contributions.” (5) In addition, President Bush family’s ties to “Big Oil” go back generations, as do V. P. Dick Cheney’s. (6)
More on Big Oil’s obscene profits. Published reports show that in 2007, the CEO of Halliburton earned about $8,300 an hour, while the CEO of ExxonMobil raked in about $13,700 an hour. When, in April, 2008, Congress went through the motions, at a public hearing, of demanding that Big Oil justify its windfall profits, its CEOs replied that they are in a boom-and-bust industry and need the huge profits to “pay for future oil development.” Incidentally, the surge in oil prices may spark a worldwide recession.
At press time, soaring oil prices have forced some airlines in the U.S. out of business and into bankruptcy. This means less competition. Also, an industry spokesperson said the public should expect “more delays” and “higher fares” this coming summer. Delta’s CEO, Richard Anderson said: “Domestic carriers would need to raise fares ‘by 15 to 20 percent’ just to break even.” (7)
Globally, the trend is towards nationalization of the oil industry. Presently, this is the situation in Russia, China, Venezuela, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Libya, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, and mostly recently Ecuador, to list some of the key Petrostates. According to Mother Jones: “State-run firms exercise exclusive domain over roughly 77 percent” of the world’s oil. (1)
On the home front, fuel, particularly the cost of diesel fuel, has now surpassed labor as the prime cost for the trucking industry. This is going to mean higher food prices. The truckers’ cost will be pass down the line and will eventually hit the consumer--the working class stiff and the poor. Cabbies are feeling the pinch, too, because of the rising cost of gas. “Their take-home pay is thinner than it use to be.” Retailers are starting to complain, also, because shoppers are beginning to stay home rather than get into the car and ride out to the mall. Store owners are trying to “figure out a way” to get people back into their cars. (8)
Finally, I think Mike Whitney hit the nail on the head about this subject matter in a piece for Counterpunch, nearly two years ago. He wrote: “Nationalizing the oil industry should be the central tenet of any progressive political movement. Evidence of the industry’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq as well as its obvious complicity in corrupting the political system should provide ample proof that the oil giants are ‘a clear and present danger to democracy’ and need to be put under state control.” (9)
Notes:
1. Mother Jones, May/June, 2008, “Put a Tyrant in Your Tank,” by Joshua Kurlantzick.
2. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/oil-f03.shtml and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm
3. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,889428-2,00.html
4. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/youngstown.... and
http://www.historycentral.com/documents/Youngstown.html
5. “Big Oil’s Big Time Looting” by Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe, 09/02/05.
6. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,738196,00.html
7. Baltimore Sun, April 23, 2008, From Wire Reports
8. Baltimore Sun, April 22, Adam Schreck
9. http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05012006.html and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Lr17usifg and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2HCR616ETI and
“The Sorrows of Empire” by Chalmers Johnson.
©2008, William Hughes, All Rights Reserved.
William Hughes is a video and print journalist. His videos can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=liamh2.
Tags: anti-corporation, nationalize, oil, resources
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bill Johnson on -
Besides oil, maybe we should nationalize housing to keep Americans in their homes and to remove the vacancy signs from foreclosed homes. Besides mortgage companies highjacked our homes and it's time for them to pay the price.
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Permalink Reply by William and Lynn McLean on -
http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2004/10/24/Neighborhoodtimes/Outre...
Our nation was born as the first great experiment in modern democracy. We seek to rescue that heritage from the erosion of citizen participation. Moreover, we seek to dissolve the grip of the ideology, intoned by big-money interests for more than twenty years, that government is intrinsically undesirable and destructive of liberty and that elected officials should rightly "starve the beast" by slashing all spending on social program, in the name of freedom. We challenge that tactic by calling on all Americans to think deeply about the meaning of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. In a democracy, individuals come together to form structures of governance that protect and advance the common good. We the citizens are the government, and we the citizens can direct it to fulfill its finest goals and purposes. Our citizens must not permit usurpation of their authority by acts of individuals and government agencies that isolate or insulate government from their oversight and control. We, the People, have a responsibility to participate in self-government through all the means that our Constitution provides.
Citizens of a democracy must have the information and ability to determine the actions of their government. Vast concentrations of wealth and power that have occurred in recent years are inherently undemocratic. The deregulation of corporate activity and the decentralization and underfunding of the regulatory structures that remain - accompanied by the centralizing of big money - has been a disaster for our country. The true owners of the public lands, pension funds, and the public airwaves are the American people, who today have little or no control over their pooled assets or their commonwealth.
The power of civic action is an antidote to the corporate control of so much of our law-making and regulating. The pervasive abuse imposed by corporate power increasingly undermines our democracy, but the Green Party seeks to rekindle the democratic flame. As voting citizens, taxpayers, workers, consumers, and stakeholders, we unite to exercise our rights and, as Thomas Jefferson urged, to counteract the "excesses of the monied interests." Toward this end, we consider serious reform of campaign funding to be essential, as well as curbs on the influence of corporations on lawmakers and regulatory agencies.
The Green Party considers American democracy to be an ongoing, unfolding project that is dynamic and creative in nature. We are committed to the strengthening of our civil society, including the many mediating institutions at the community level that have always characterized our democracy. We seek to heal the alienation and apathy that has been cultivated in the citizenry by the power-brokers of the status quo. Righteous anger about the crippling of our democracy is rising in the land, and the Greens offer constructive alternatives. In addition, we seek to repair the plummeting opinion of the United States in the international community resulting from our arrogant, narcissistic foreign policy of recent years. A growing and grave imbalance between the citizens of this country and the interests which extract power from the citizens is an imminent danger to our security and national and global social stability. We strongly feel that our country should view itself as a member of the community of nations... not above it. The United States could well play a leadership role in that community but only if we become committed to an eco-social vision of peace, national self-determination, and international cooperation.
It is time for a radical shift in our attitude toward support for families, children, the poor and the disabled. Such support must not be given grudgingly; it is the right of those presently in need and an investment in our future. We must take an uncompromising position that the care and nurture of children, elders and the disabled are essential to a healthy, peaceful, and sustainable society. We should recognize that the work of their caregivers is of social and economic value, and reward it accordingly. Ensuring that children and their caregivers have access to an adequate, secure standard of living should form the cornerstone of our economic priorities. Only then can we hope to build our future on a foundation of healthy, educated children who are raised in an atmosphere of love and security.
1. All people have a right to food, housing, medical care, jobs that pay a living wage, education, and support in times of hardship.
2. Work performed outside the monetary system has inherent social and economic value, and is essential to a healthy, sustainable economy and peaceful communities. Such work includes: child and elder care; homemaking; voluntary community service; continuing education; participating in government; and the arts.
3. We call for restoration of a federally funded entitlement program to support children, families, the unemployed, elderly and disabled, with no time limit on benefits. This program should be funded through the existing welfare budget, reductions in military spending and corporate subsidies, and a fair, progressive income tax.
4. We call for a graduated supplemental income, or negative income tax, that would maintain all individual adult incomes above the poverty level, regardless of employment or marital status.
5. We advocate reinvesting a significant portion of the military budget into family support, living-wage job development, and work training programs. Publicly funded work training and education programs should have a goal of increasing employment options at finding living-wage jobs.
6. We support public funding for the development of living-wage jobs in community and environmental service. For example, environmental clean-up, recycling, sustainable agriculture and food production, sustainable forest management, repair and maintenance of public facilities, neighborhood-based public safety, aides in schools, libraries and childcare centers, and construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing. We oppose enterprise zone give-aways which benefit corporations more than inner-city communities
7. The accumulation of individual wealth in the U.S. has reached grossly unbalanced proportions. It is clear that we cannot rely on the rich to regulate their profit-making excesses for the good of society through "trickle-down economics." We must take aggressive steps to restore a fair distribution of income. We support tax incentives for businesses that apply fair employee wage distribution standards, and income tax policies that restrict the accumulation of excessive individual wealth.
8. Forcing welfare recipients to accept jobs that pay wages below a living wage drives wages down and exploits workers for private profit at public expense. We reject workfare as being a form of indentured servitude.
9. Corporations receiving public subsidies must provide jobs that pay a living wage, observe basic workers' rights, and agree to affirmative action policies.
Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or "unmaking" all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions.
Make the quality of life, rather than open-ended economic growth, the focus of future thinking.
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Permalink Reply by Dan on -
Where are we getting the money to fund all of this? I mean, it sounds good. :)
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Permalink Reply by Bill Johnson on
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Check out my video, My American Nightmare, about mortgate fraud:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7VatusBxfdc
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Permalink Reply by Ty on -
You should check out Brian Moore who's the Socialist Party nominee for President. He supports nationalization of certain large industries.
http://www.votebrianmoore.com
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Permalink Reply by Ty on
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The only one I disagree with is item number 9. Corporations and other types of businesses should never receive public subsidies from our tax money. All corporate welfare must end.
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Permalink Reply by Sharon on -
Yes, I agree! My last oil bill was over $600, for a little over 200 gallons. Gas is now near $4.00 a gallon. Yet there is no oil shortage, and the big guns are getting richer, while I can't even PAY my oil bill! Nationalize the Oil Industry! How do we start this?
Thanks for this post, guys.
Sharon
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