One of the most hopeful signs in the new Congress is they seem to be more aggressively going after big oil, which is the root of problems in the Middle East.
If we did not have bases and puppet governments over there, the only people who would be hurt would be our oil companies and their major shareholders. We could still buy oil on the open market from those countries, and they would have no reason to cut us off since we wouldn't be meddling in their affairs (and even if they did cut us off, it would hurt them a lot more than us).
We need to go a step further though and keep these bastards from buying patents to alternative energy tech and sitting on them, or using other means to quash or intimidate competing technologies. A hundred years ago, I think they used to call this "anti-trust" legislation to break up something they called "monopolies."
While no politician today may be familiar with these terms, there may be historians of the progressive era who could translate the ancient texts and help today's pols come up with something similar.
Big Change, Not Big Oil
Carl Pope
January 17, 2007
Carl Pope is executive director of the Sierra Club , the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization.The disastrous effects of the energy policy written for Big Oil by Big Oil came home to roost last year. While American families had to cope with skyrocketing energy costs, oil companies raked in record profits—due in no small measure to the generous giveaways engineered by the president and his friends in Congress. The first step toward an energy policy need and deserve is to roll back these billions of dollars in unnecessary subsidies for outdated energy industries, and to redirect the money to programs that benefit American jobs and families, help end our dangerous oil dependence and put us on the path toward real energy security. Fortunately, on Thursday the new Congress is poised to take just such an action.
On election day, Americans rejected the dirty politics wrought by Big Oil’s deep pockets and the dirty outdated technologies of yesterday that threaten our security, our pocketbooks and our environment. Even as energy costs continued to rise, Big Oil’s friends in Congress had continued to push for billions more in subsidies and tax breaks while ignoring common sense proposals that would save consumers money, help curb global warming, and fight our dangerous dependence on oil. Election-day polling by Lake Research found that 74 percent of responders said their vote was influenced by dissatisfaction with Big Oil’s influence in Congress and the desire to embrace an alternative. In a year where voters saw $3-a-gallon gas and a $400 million retirement package at ExxonMobil, it is hardly surprising that 96 percent of voters said they wanted a new direction for energy.
Since some of Big Oil’s best friends have been shown the door, the new Congress has a solid opportunity and responsibility to move America forward. For example, for the past several years the oil and gas industry has received numerous tax breaks and loopholes that make it easier for them to avoid paying taxes on the oil they drill for. These range from changing the definition of oil for a “commodity” to a “service,” to reducing the amount in royalties they have to pay the government for oil drilled on leased public land.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/17/big_change_not_big_oil.php
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