Posted by Editor on June 22, 2008 at 09:50:34:
As concerned citizens living together in a society which has many economic and government problems which have been in existence for many years, we who are working to alert our citizenry to the reality that We CAN change our system of government and the economy from its present autocratic organization to one of a genuine democracy, have only to know what is happening today in our U.S. Congress, an event that declares this corporate system is not sacrosanct, that it is subject to change WHENEVER we decide to do so, as we have been counseled by the Founding Fathers of our nation.
The current question in the U.S. Congress is: Will the U.S. Government form an oil corporation much like the U.S. Post Office business?
A few days ago, in response to Pres. Bush’s blaming the Democrats for the high prices of gasoline, because, as Bush put it, "Congress has refused to allow off shore drilling" several Congressmen, among them NY’s Maurice Hinche, revealed that the oil corporations have had 68 million acres of Congressional approved leases to drill on public lands for several years, acres which have the potential for a 14 year supply of oil, which would have effectively controlled oil and gas prices, but have not done so. Why not?
Reason is, the oil corporations do not want to invest their monies in new land drilling sites. They find it easier and more profitable buying oil from the OPEC countries by simply passing on the OPEC barrel price, plus their own refining costs which become profit additions, to We, the American consumers who have little choice but to pay the outrageous prices for our daily transportation needs.
The Congressmen reported that the Bush, corporate- minded, Administration, in deference to the Exxons, Shells, Mobiles, etc., has played along with the oil companies in not advocating the use of the public lands for oil production.
In overcoming Bush's callous indifferences to the needs of working people, Rep. Hinche, along with several others, are now planning to set up a Government corporation which will drill and refine the oil from the 68 million acres to bring the prices at the pumps to an affordable level. Will they succeed, or will the oil corporations so fear Government competition and invest their own monies in those lands? Time will tell.
Nationalization of socially needed services has a precedence. Critical social services are oftimes ignored by private capital investors because these may be too expensive to start, and for toolittle profit.
The Tennessee Valley Authority was Congressionally created in 1933 to develop some of the hardest hit economically depressed areas of our country because the system of capitalism once again failed to service our society's needs.
The TVA was envisioned not only as an electricity provider, but also as a regional economic development agency that would use federal experts and electricity to rapidly modernize the region's economy and society. It still exists. It is another example of how our society’s needed resources can be organized to serve the people, rather than the profit interests of our society’s ruling political and economic classes.
But more important for us, We the People, the differences between the President and the Democrats, are less important than the reality we witness when a Congress made up of like minded Representatives, CAN legislate industrial resources to be transformed from private profit ownership to social ownership to produce for society’s needs, and to the exclusion of private profit accruing capital investment which is always gained at the expense of our society’s wage earners.
The question of Congressional approval of a Federal oil corporation confirms the realistic and justifiable possibilities for We, the People, CAN bring genuine democracy into our needed social institutions, and use our work places for our real needs rather, as these are now used, to accrue private profits to wealthy capital investors who, themselves, never step foot into the factory floors of industries in which We, the working people, make all the wonderful goods and services, many of which, ironically, our wage incomes cannot afford.
When WE get OUR acts together, organize and day comes when we elect like minded people, PFANS representatives, to Congress to transform this kind of questionable political representation to a system in which we have a direct voice and vote in our communities and workplaces, we will no longer have to “wait and see” as is now the way, how our Reps vote on socially important issues because such Reps will be legally mandated to perform as their constituents have democratically decided.