Democratic Talk Radio: Democratic Voices Column: Bush And The Oil Industry Traitors

May 26, 2004

Bush And The Oil Industry Traitors

The Bush Republicans are serving the interests of Big Oil and foreign oil producing nations to the detriment of our nation’s future and the American people. Bush’s publicly stated reasons for not using the Strategic Oil Reserve to lower the price of gasoline, diesel fuel and home heating oil sounds good until you apply a little logic and history to the issue. Bush claims that opening the Reserve would make the United States weaker in dealing with supply disruptions resulting from a terrorist attack on oil refineries or key pipelines domestically.

The Oil Reserve is held in unrefined crude oil. It is not held in refined products like gasoline, diesel fuel or home heating oil. It is stored underground in our nation to help the United States deal with disruptions in the world market. The current tight supplies are a form of disruption that threatens the economic strength of the American nation. The excessively high prices are the result of OPEC and the Big Oil companies acting collectively to restrict supplies in order to drive up the prices for petroleum products. OPEC is keeping crude oil prices up by pumping less. The oil companies have been closing refineries and not expanding refining facilities to meet rising demand. The Bush Republicans in Congress and the White House have blocked government assistance to promoting alternative energy while crippling government restrictions on price gouging by Big Oil for over 30 years.

Every oil crisis since OPEC was formed in the early 1970’s have seen record profits by the oil industry quickly followed by floods of campaign donations to Republicans. As anti-monopoly laws have been gutted, Big Oil has moved to capture control of all other types of energy suppliers. Privatization and de-regulation have given Big Oil a dangerously level of control over the entire economic health of the American nation. They have used this excessive market power to gain nearly complete control of the Republican Party and thru them in the Bush era the federal government. At this time in our history, Big Oil runs our government instead of the American people.

For example, the California Energy Crisis was the result of the illegal use of market power by Enron and others under the protective cover of Republican politicians. The Bush Administration stopped federal agencies from investigating the abuses until the damage was done. The current Republican Governor of California let the abusive companies keep most of these illegal profits. No wonder their campaigns received huge donations from Big Oil related donors! Taxpayers and consumers were the losers.

Big Oil has always acted in their self-interest regardless of the consequences for the America nation and our citizens. They helped create our problems with terrorism and many nations around the world by exercising undue influence on the foreign policies of the American government. They helped create OPEC by acting collectively to set the price of crude oil and oil royalties in the OPEC nations. The governments in the OPEC nations nationalized their domestic production and started acting collectively to keep from getting ripped off by Big Oil.

Now, Big Oil has found a way to profit excessively from higher crude prices by further reducing domestic supply. The United States needs to follow the OPEC approach and nationalize the Oil Industry. We should then work with other major oil-consuming nations to set reasonable prices with OPEC. Nations not willing to cooperate should lose all access to the America market for all products. The American market in general is the key engine for the so-called new global economy. If Japan, China or Europe does not work with the United States to control runaway oil prices, they should not be able to sell products here. We need to equalize the market power of the consumers and suppliers. The economic strength of the American nation depends on moving in this direction rapidly.

In the short term, the Strategic Oil Reserve is the key. We need to at least stop the drain on the world crude supply by continuing to fill the Reserve during the current crisis. If this proves less than successful in controlling prices, we should start releasing the Reserve. It would help greatly in the event of a terrorist attack to have this unrefined crude refined into gasoline, diesel oil and especially home heating oil. Closing refineries for unnecessary maintenance under current circumstance hurts to American nation but profits Big Oil. If we lose refineries to terrorism, supplies of crude oil stored underground will be worthless in meeting the needs for refined products. The Bush argument for not using the Oil Reserve simply is bogus.

We need to move aggressively towards lessening our dependence on oil for meeting our energy needs. We need to tighten our laws and regulations against price gouging. We need to vote out of office every Bush Republican at every level so Big Oil cannot dictate our energy policy and foreign policy. Our national energy policy and our foreign policies should be designed to promote our national strength and improving the standard of living of the vast majority of American citizens. We would not have gotten into the current Iraqi mess without the Big Oil influence on the Bush Administration. These writers believe that the Bush Administration will not release the Cheney Energy Taskforce information because it would likely prove that Bush and Cheney were planning on invading Iraq to profit Big Oil long before the 9-11 attacks. The Iraqi misadventure has weakened The American nation greatly.

The interests of United States is more threatened by the greedy traitors of Big Oil and their allies among the Bush Republicans than even the crazed Islamic terrorists they helped indirectly to create and finance! Our only remaining defense is our vote in November.

Written By Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence (hosts of DemocraticTalkRadio.com ).
Mail: 7A Planville Drive, Fayetteville, TN 37334.
Phone: 931-438-1500 or 443-421-0287.
Feel free to run as a Democratic Voices column, guest Editorial or Letter To The Editor.

Sincerely,
Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence