{"id":2419,"date":"2018-12-26T00:11:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T08:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2419"},"modified":"2018-12-26T00:38:17","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T08:38:17","slug":"oil-men-put-santa-in-chains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2419","title":{"rendered":"Oil men put Santa in chains"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that time to turn away from the scourge of Trump and look for kinder, gentler souls. Recent news gives us many candidates, but we\u2019ve heard enough about foreigners with names like Putin or Erdo\u011fan or Assad. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, we can focus much closer to home on Gary R. Heminger, Chairman and CEO of Marathon Oil, and the Koch brothers, David and Charles, <\/span><\/p>\n

These oligarchs are or soon will be responsible for killing thousands of innocent people around the world, many right here in the U.S. These three, especially, are attempting to get Americans to burn an additional 300,000 to 400,000 barrels of oil per day. <\/span><\/p>\n

Why? Because Marathon is now the largest gasoline refiner in the U.S. and C.E.O. Heminger makes only $20 million per year<\/i> in total compensation. It\u2019s not enough. <\/span>The Koch brothers have wealth of about $50 billion, each. <\/i>But it\u2019s not enough! THEY NEED MORE MONEY! <\/span><\/p>\n

They want to roll back mileage standards so fewer people will be interested in electric cars, so giant SUVs will be used to get groceries. They don\u2019t care who dies in California fires or Florida hurricanes. They don\u2019t care about crop damage or rising sea levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fake news, you say? No. <\/span>A major scientific report issued by 13 federal agencies on Friday, December 14, 2018, predicted damage that will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century\u2019s end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Effects include\u00a0<\/span>record\u00a0wildfires in California,<\/span> crop failures and crumbling infrastructure. American exports and supply chains disrupted, agricultural yields falling to 1980s levels and fire season that could spread to the Southeast.<\/span><\/p>\n

The oligarchs don\u2019t care. They write laws they wrap around huge wads of cash and slip to legislators across the country. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRoll back fuel standards,\u201d they whisper, \u201cand we\u2019ll give you even more. We\u2019ll keep you in office as long as you want, we\u2019ll make you rich when you leave \u2018public service.\u2019 \u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Hear them laugh as they say \u201cpublic service.\u201d In your imagination, hear the snap of rubber bands around stacks of campaign cash, catch the scent of extravagant dinners and listen to the roar of private jets. Because your imagination is as close as you will get to these oligarchs who own \u201cour\u201d government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aloud they say, \u201cAmericans deserve freedom of choice in the vehicles they drive.\u201d But what they mean is \u201cAmericans should drive the thirstiest, most wasteful vehicles in the world so we can sell them more gasoline!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the Kochs fought laws in Iowa that would <\/span>make it easier for gas stations to install chargers for electric vehicles. Where is their advocacy for choice in that? <\/span><\/p>\n

Not there, because the oligarchs don\u2019t care about choice, they just want more money. They don\u2019t want less pollution. They want more money. They don\u2019t care how many lives are lost to wildfires. They want more money. They don\u2019t care if millions face hardship due to a hard hit economy. They want more money.<\/span><\/p>\n

These greed monsters hide behind giving Americans \u201cfreedom of choice.\u201d This is not about freedom. The only freedom here is their freedom from responsibility for the suffering they cause.<\/span><\/p>\n

Freedom of choice? Here are a few other freedoms the American people would like to choose: Freedom from lung cancer caused by pollution from the\u00a0350,000 to 400,000 barrels of additional<\/i> gasoline per day burned. Freedom from despair for children with brains shriveled from lead in our drinking water. Who will give them freedom in choosing their future? Freedom for suffocating oceans from algae blooms caused by subsidized Koch fertilizer running off subsidized sugar cane fields in Florida. Freedom of information for voters as Marathon pays lawyers to cloak corporate lobbyists writing laws that state legislators are too busy or corrupt to understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about those choices if we\u2019re going to talk about freedom of choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about free markets, either. There are no free markets in America, outside of Craig\u2019s list. Economists call what\u2019s happening a \u201ccost shift.\u201d The oligarchs profit by shifting the true cost of their greed onto the rest of us. <\/span><\/p>\n

Remember \u201cMain Street bailing out Wall Street?\u201d Well, Wall Street is at it again. Drug companies rig the price of medicines; banks shuffle mortgages and put working Americans out of their homes as if playing Monopoly on the living room carpet; Marathon juggles gas prices to influence elections; and the Koch brothers write state laws and gerrymander elections to retain a choke hold on democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have become what Plato described over 2,000 years ago as an \u201coligarchy,\u201d where political power is given to rich but incompetent leaders, there\u2019s instability\u00a0 <\/span>between rich and poor, a growth of\u00a0 <\/span>revolutionary spirit among the poor and poor performance in military campaigns (Good-bye, Kurds. We\u2019re out of here! Good luck with Turkey, Russia and Syria. Thanks for your help with ISIS and Iran!)<\/span><\/p>\n

What is especially galling about this latest effort by Marathon and Koch Industries is that it\u2019s being undertaken while the companies are aware of the consequences. The impact is not a matter for debate: we all know what\u2019s happening around the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

I accept that the job of a company is to maximize profit, not worry about social impact. If Heminger wants to waddle up to the White House to kiss Trump\u2019s (ring) for a few hundred million per year for his company, and a few more of those millions for himself, well, that\u2019s capitalism. <\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s up to the rest of us to make sure they don\u2019t profit on the back of our suffering, that our rights to clean water and breathable air and healthy food are protected or that we are at least compensated for what they\u2019ve taken from us. Maybe they could at least buy each of us a casket.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a just world, the Koch brothers and Heminger would be held accountable. They would lose their fortunes to the multitudes who suffer because of their greed and would spend the rest of their days as cellmates asking their God for forgiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t live in a just world, we live in a world where justice is sometimes hard to come by and hard when it is. If that day comes, hopefully the American people will demand these oligarchs pay for their crimes against humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I asked Santa for this year. Predictably, all I got was a lump of coal, dug in Wyoming and on its way to China. It fell off a train in Washington state. Santa wasn’t able to get south of Canada, anyway. On December 20th, Republicans in Congress passed a law that sleighs could no longer be powered by magic reindeer, and must burn at least one gallon of crude for every gift given to children all over the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that time to turn away from the scourge of Trump and look for kinder, gentler souls. Recent news gives us many candidates, but we\u2019ve heard enough about foreigners with names like Putin or Erdo\u011fan or Assad. <\/p>\n

Fortunately, we can focus much closer to home on Gary R. Heminger, Chairman and CEO of Marathon Oil, and the Koch brothers, David and Charles, <\/p>\n

These oligarchs are or soon will be responsible for killing thousands of innocent people around the world, many right here in the U.S. These three, especially, are \u2026 Read more\u2026 → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[520],"tags":[544,543,542,545,433],"class_list":["post-2419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-koch-brothers","tag-marathon-oil","tag-oil","tag-pollution","tag-republicans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mcOb-D1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2419"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2427,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions\/2427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}