In a Nutshell

by Norla Antinoro

It’s a gas shortage! Here we go again. I remember the last one and it was no fun. This one looks to be every bit as bogus and as bad for the ordinary citizens as the last one. The signs were there. Hurricane Katrina sent prices of fuel up. Then Hurricane Rita shut down all the refineries in the southern USA from North Carolina to Texas. There were rumblings that this would have repercussions. Gas prices were going to go up because the refineries had to shut down.

Gas prices are up across North America and appear to still be on the rise. The reasoning used in public is that the oil companies will be losing money due to the effects of Katrina and Rita. So they will have to raise prices to compensate for the losses they are taking. Sure, that makes sense. We all know that when the orange crop freezes, oranges get real expensive. A smaller crop has to feed the farmers and their families, after all, so each orange carries a bigger price tag. We all understand the basic economics. Except that the oil companies are not taking any losses at all. At a time when the average citizen is tightening their belt to make it from paycheck to paycheck and millions are destitute from the effects of the storms in the North American area, the oil companies are making record profits.

I don’t expect oil companies to show compassion. They are, after all corporations, and corporations do not live and breathe, they do not have hearts that beat. They exist to gather profits and for no other reason. So I do not expect corporations to show compassion. I do, however, expect them to show responsibility. That is their moral and ethical obligation to the society in which they exist, without which they cannot exist.

No corporation can exist or thrive in a vacuum. Without a market they die. Without an effective work force, they die. Without a product, they die. Every corporation exists within the context of its society and owes its very existence to that society. If they cannot be good, responsible citizens, they should be denied the right to participate in the society that gives them life.

Unfortunately, right now the robber barons are once again in power and they hold the reins. We cannot simply say “They are being irresponsible, enforce the laws and make them stop.” They now have the laws and the enforcement of those laws in their hands. They have the legislature in their hands. They have gutted the federal government and left it weak and ineffective and what is left of it lies in their hands. So we can hope for no help from the various branches of government in bringing the corporations that are exploiting the victims of storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, hunger, cold, or poverty to heel. They hold the reins of that government in their hands. If we try to vote them out, they hold the voting machines that would tally the votes in their hands. Once again stuffing the ballot boxes has become easy and safe for the bad guys. We have stepped back a hundred years in the electoral area in this country. Huey Long would have felt right at home in today’s America.

The answer lies in the hands of the people. We must become a force they cannot stand against. If they hold the reins of government, we hold the reins of a different kind of power. The past few years have shown that grass roots movements do work. They are getting stronger every day and a number of grassroots efforts have moved beyond the internet and into the everyday world where they are being seen and becoming more and more effective.

We marched in the 50s, 60s and 70s. We laid down. We sat down. We wrote. We sang and we stood. For Civil Rights. Against the war. We can do it again. We know how. The knees may be creaky and the back may be sore, for many of us are no longer young, but we know how to organize, we know how to demonstrate, we know how to resist and object.

The oil companies are making record profits while people are living in shelters without resources. While you and I are paying gouging prices at the gas pump just to get to work and the grocery, to school and the doctor, the oil companies are making record profits.

That is just plain wrong. If the storms are going to cause losses for the oil companies, and they are going to raise prices as a result, they should be showing no change in profits at all. But when their profits should be holding steady or declining slightly as they, as responsible corporate citizens, suck it up and shoulder their part of the burden of these storms, their profits are soaring.

When the whole human family should be pulling together, the oil companies have become carpet baggers, exploiting the ravaged victims of the worst hurricane season in recent history. The oil companies are stealing our future. They are sinking our country and our grandchildren’s hopes as they are lining their own pockets.

It is now the corporations we must fight. We are their market. We are their work force. Without us, they will die. If we can find a way to harness the very real power that lies in the hands of the people, we can change what the corporations choose to do.

The knees may be creaky, but years or experience and a long memory are still there. It’s time for us to dust off those long unused picket signs.

The demonstration in Washington DC was a good beginning. Let’s keep the momentum going. The war continues and it is the oil companies that are driving that as well.

If we don’t work, they will go under. If we don’t buy, they will go under. The only problem is getting that “we” to work together effectively. We have the power - if we can organize and work together to use it.

"Leave no trace upon the Earth but the footprints of your compassion and the echoes of your laughter." - nma, 2002

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