Corporatocracy and the US Congress

(JAMESTOWN, R.I.) - With gas prices over $4 per gallon the poor and vanishing middle class struggle to contend with the ever rising prices, while those who heat their homes with oil shiver at the prospect of trying to do so this coming winter, Congress has not proposed any meaningful solution.

Since we live in a corporatrocracy with Congress being nothing more than an illusion or an ancient vestige of democracy, it is unreasonable to expect Congress or the President to do anything to relieve the suffering. Sure they will play the game of pretention and call for investigations, and call for end to the 4 billion dollar tax subsidy given to the oil companies yearly, but this will be mere rhetoric designed to convince the public they are working on their behalf while all the while being in the back pocket of oil companies and special interest groups.

Congress long ago became prostitutes by selling themselves to corporations and thereby selling out the public. Meanwhile Exxon announced a first quarter profit of 11 billion dollars.

Shell quickly followed with the announcement of its almost 9 billion dollar profit and BP made public its 7.2 billion dollar first quarter profit. In the coming days more oil companies will announce spectacular profits and Congress will escalate its rhetoric for a few weeks, and then just conveniently forget the issue.

We of course, like fools will continue to support our Congress for speaking out on our behalf. Congress will appease the constituency by constantly repeating the refrain that there is nothing we can do about rising oil prices as its all due to supply and demand which of course is nonsense.

Is there anything Congress or the President can do? Of course there is and we only have to look to the arch enemy of Corporatocracy, Hugo Chavez leader of Venezuela, for a solution. Chavez recently announced a 95% tax on everything over $100 a barrel which effectively stifles any attempt by an oil company to gouge consumers.

If they do however, he collects the tax and boots the government’s supply of money, then turns around and spends the money on social programs for his people. It’s no one wonder he is considered an enemy of the US government, a government owned by corporations. It no surprise that corporate media has said very little about the Chavez solution, for his idea could be contagious, and it is no surprise that the American public has been conditioned by media to view Hugo Chavez as a dictator who represents a threat to the US.

Any thinking person can discern the nonsense to the media’s concept of Chavez, but then again we are not known to be a nation of thinkers, for we are too interested in reality TV to take the time to think for ourselves.

Some claimed it would be treasonous for Americans to accept the offer of Chavez to donate 40 million gallons of oil to folks in the Northeast who were being gouged by US oil companies claiming refinery destruction by hurricane Katrina was escalating oil prices. This would also be the same Hugo Chavez who offered 100 million gallons of subsidized oil at a discount to America’s neediest.

Chavez has accomplished two goals with his tax; it creates great wealth for the government and then the money is put to use improving conditions for the people. What a wonderful concept; taxing the oil profits, a resource which is owned by the people of Venezuela, and a government using its power to improve the condition of the people. You can easily see why Mr. Chavez is depicted as a dictator and evil tyrant, for his ideas certainly do represent a major threat to a corporatocrcy.

Chavez critics in the US, mainly mouthpieces for US corporations, argue that Chavez is merely “buying” votes, while US corporations buy votes by donating huge sums to different candidates who are considered “friendly” to their interests. Mr. Chavez, if he keeps it up, might just have a very unfortunate accident perpetrated by those who consider his ideas to be a threat to corporatocrcy.

Salem-News.com Writer Joe Clifford, lives in historic Jamestown, Rhode Island, and has contributed a number of articles relating to foreign policy to newspapers in the Rhode Island area for years.

He graduated from Providence College where he earned an undergraduate and graduate degree. After a lengthy career as a high school teacher he turned to the study of US foreign policy, and then to writing, as a means of expressing an alternative perspective. His reading and research on foreign policy is broad and extensive, especially as the policy relates to the Middle East. His interest in foreign policy was inspired by the American misadventure in Vietnam. You can write to Joe at this address: jc21131@gmail.com