Reply #16: Secret Government used to be un-American. Now it's SOP.

[Octafish]

Readers are leaders, indeed.

Big Oil's Last Stand

By Antonia Juhasz. Edited by Emily Schwartz Greco
Foreign Policy in Focus
October 22, 2008

Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from the introduction to The Tyranny of Oil: the World's Most Powerful Industry, and What We Must Do To Stop It (William Morrow 2008).

Within days of the New Year, 2008 began with three landmark events. Oil reached $100 per barrel for only the second time in history as gasoline prices began an ascent toward the highest prices in a generation. And on January 3, Senator Barack Obama became the first African American to win the Iowa Caucus. Voter turnout broke records as well, with four times more registered Democrats voting than had turned out in 2000. Obama was reserved yet purposeful as he delivered his historic victory speech. He chose to highlight just a handful of policy issues in the 15-minute address, making his focus on oil all the more significant. Obama forcefully declared that he would free the United States once and for all from "the tyranny of oil" and then pledged to be the president "who ends the war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home." An already raucous crowd met these pronouncements with thunderous applause and waves of cheers.

"The tyranny of oil" powerfully encapsulates the feelings not only of Americans, but of people the world over. Without viable and accessible alternatives, entire economies suffer when increasing proportions of national budgets must be used to purchase oil. And on an individual level, families, facing the same lack of alternatives, forgo basic necessities when gasoline prices skyrocket. Communities that live where oil is found — from Ecuador to Nigeria to Iraq — experience the tyranny of daily human rights abuses, violence, and war. The tyranny of environmental pollution, public health risks, and climate destruction is created at every stage of oil use, from exploration to production, from transport to refining, from consumption to disposal. And the political tyranny exercised by the masters of the oil industry corrupts democracy and destroys our ability to choose how much we will sacrifice in oil's name.

SNIP...

2,600 Mergers

Since 1991, government regulators, under the direct and heavy influence of the nation's largest oil companies and their lawyers, have allowed more than 2,600 mergers to take place in the U.S. oil industry. The mergers have resulted in the near demise of the independent oil company, refiner, and gas station in the United States.

The mergers of the mega-giant oil companies have all taken place since 1999 and remain the largest mergers in corporate history. Exxon merged with Mobil, Chevron with Texaco, Conoco with Phillips, and BP with Amoco and then Arco to create the largest corporations the world has ever seen. Shell also participated in the merger wave by purchasing several "baby-Standard" oil companies.

While nowhere near its Seven Sisters "glory years," Big Oil's oil reserves are impressive nonetheless. Were the five largest oil companies operating in the United States one country instead of five corporations, their combined crude oil holdings would today rank within the top 10 of the world's largest oil-rich nations. ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP exercise their control over the price of oil today through these individual holdings and through participation in the crude oil futures market. The futures market has replaced OPEC as the principal determinant of the price of crude oil. It is largely unregulated and prone to excessive speculation and manipulation.

The mergers also allowed the oil companies to take control of the refining and selling of gasoline in the United States in the style of Standard Oil. They have forged a mass consolidation of these sectors, yielding rapid increases in the price of gasoline and oil company profits.

CONTINUED...

http://www.fpif.org/articles/big_oils_last_stand

Thank you for the heads-up on that big turning point in history, OnyxCollie.

"...on certain occassions..." Hah!