Sharing the Wealth

One of the things that Sarah Palin has been know to speak proudly of, is how every man, woman, and child in Alaska receives a check each year, proceeds of the oil revenue.  I find that a little odd, as I am sure if the discovery of oil had occurred while she was governor, there would be no such payment.

It has always been the Republican philosophy that when natural resources are extracted from public lands, the company doing the extracting pays minimal fees.  The idea is that you do not want to place any conditions that might discourage a business from exploring and extracting resources, anything that would effect the bottom line.  The concept that the nation's natural resources, even those on public land, should be for the benefit of the nation as a whole is foreign to the right.

It has also been our policy that those we do business with live by the same rules.  Our current problems with Iran can be traced to our complicity in the 1953 Iranian coup, where a democratically elected government was overthrown for having the temerity to expect to demand a larger (50%, what Saudi Arabia was getting at the time)  share of the oil revenues.  When the British company (predecessor to BP coincidentally) refused to negotiate, the Iranians nationalized the oil industry.  Although President Truman refused to participate, Eisenhower was more than willing to aid the British in the overthrow of the only democracy in the Muslim Middle East.  The fallout from that plagues us to this day.

Closer to home there are many cases where the US intervened in Latin America to protect business interests.  In Nicaragua alone, we intervened 7 times between 1894 and 1912, the last time being an occupation that lasted until 1933.

So, is it any surprise that corporate profits are up, wages are stagnant, and unemployment remains high?  This is just how it is.  You are not important, you never have been.  What is important is that the businesses that buy and sell the politicians maintain their profit margins.

So when Sarah Palin  speaks proudly of  the oil revenues shared by the Alaskan people, remember, if she had been in charge when they built the pipeline, the Alaskan people would be getting squat, except perhaps toxic waste dumped into their rivers.  And it is not just the Sarah Palins of this world.  A lot of the administrations that aided in the looting of Latin America were Democrats.

So don't feel bad that you are getting screwed.  It is not just you.  They do this to everyone.