Chicago Tribune - Big Oil's Big-Time Looting of Nation

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0509050116sep05,0,1054101.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed

Corporate thieves are being allowed to walk off with billions

Derrick Z. Jackson, New York Times News Service
Published September 5, 2005


President Bush last week told ABC-TV, "There ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."

Zero tolerance is meaningless when the White House lets the biggest looters of Hurricane Katrina walk off with billions of dollars.

We are not referring to the people you currently see in endless footage, crashing through storefronts and wading through chest-high water with clothes, food and pharmaceuticals. Some folks are disgusting in their thuggishness, but a great many others are simply desperate, having gone days without food or water. The latter are living out one of the most famous hypothetical problems in moral reasoning--should a husband steal a cancer drug he cannot afford for his dying wife?

No such sympathy is to be extended to big oil. The nation has on its hands a disaster so profound that we have not even begun to seriously count the bodies in the floodwaters. It brings us as close as we may get in our lifetime to places like Bangladesh.

New Orleans will not return to normal for years. Members of the Red Cross, the Coast Guard, the National Guard, police agencies and firefighters are sacrificing time and risking lives to save lives. Texas is opening up its school systems for homeless Louisiana children. Food wholesalers are giving away their stocks to passersby. The Astrodome took in the refugees of the Superdome.

In the midst of this charity, big oil looted the nation. The pumps instantly shot past $3 a gallon, with $4 a gallon well in sight.

But the Republicans always find a way to excuse Bush and his administrations actions!

The Bush Mantra

oh, i don't disagree with a word in the article ... not one word ...

but the article, and most Americans, miss the larger, much more important point ... if Americans only complain about "Big Oil" when they have sticker shock at the gas station, we, and the press, have failed to educate them on Big Oil's real abuses ...

Big Oil is writing this country's energy policy and it's writing this country's foreign policy as well ... that's what's important to understand ... American's need to care about more than just their pocketbooks; they need to understand that Big Oil has infested their democracy ...

if we fail to awaken Americans to the total corruption of their government, we will soon, very soon, find ourselves a bankrupt nation engaged in an endless war we can never win ... and all that will occur under the devastating umbrella of global warming ...

this is not about fuel pump rape; this is about the destruction of our country ... Mr. Jackson apparently doesn't understand that ...

print it. Anyone who has read the NYTimes since before the IRAQ invasion
should realize that it shills for the Rockefeller, Rothschild cabal.

Welsheterrier2 said, "Big Oil is writing this country's energy policy and its writing this country's foreign policy as well. . ."

This is by design. If a fascist state is to be erected within a democracy, then the need to maintain its most valued commodity(in this case, oil)has to be maintained. To wage continual war in the way it is done today, oil has to be controlled and maintained to fuel the war machine. In order to keep the machine running smoothly, oil must be preserved. Stockpiles need to continue to grow. Since our economic engine runs on oil products, its supply must be controlled by those whose hand turns the tap. Now, like any drug dealer will tell you, control the supply and you control the user. Control the user and you can maintain power. Maintain power and you have effective control over the dictates of the market. If competition arises, remove it by any means necessary, even if that includes taking over the competition. It's all a house of cards, folks.

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