ExxonMobil gets rich, the earth dies
By
Caleb T. Maupin
Published Aug 8, 2008 7:03 AM
Workers in the U.S. are suffering the horrors of an economic crisis. They are
losing their homes and being laid off in record numbers. They are forced to pay
skyrocketing prices to fill their gas tanks and to put food on the table. But
the big corporations and bankers aren’t suffering with them.
In fact, ExxonMobil, the giant oil company, just reported the “largest
ever quarterly operating profits for a U.S. company,” according to the
Associated Press (July 31). While workers suffered, ExxonMobil raked in an
unprecedented $11.68 billion in three months.
ExxonMobil has another record—a record of crimes the oil giant committed
against the people and the environment. ExxonMobil’s recklessness in the
famous Exxon Valdez oil spill caused 11 million gallons of oil to be dumped
into the ocean. The state of Alaska says this “is widely considered the
number-one spill worldwide in terms of damage to the environment.”
Record profits do not stop this oil giant from pressing for more and more
wealth. Greed, the fundamental driving force of the capitalist economic system,
is alive and well in the boardrooms of ExxonMobil. Now the company wants to
revoke the regulations preventing offshore drilling and drilling on Federal
Wildlife Reserves in Alaska!
ExxonMobil has spent millions of dollars to undermine and counter the
scientific fact of global warming. While the
horrors of ecological disaster loom, ExxonMobil has funded efforts to deny
reality.
ExxonMobil is what the capitalist system is all about. Workers in Venezuela
have realized that. The Chavez government has used the nationalized oil company
profits to serve the needs of the people, thereby eliminating profits for the
rich as the motivation behind oil production. As a result, in Venezuela, a
gallon of gasoline currently costs less than 50 cents. The revenue reaped from
oil production goes to building schools and health care clinics, not to line
some capitalist’s pockets.
There is no fundamental difference between ExxonMobil and other major
capitalist corporations. They all exist to make profits. Period.
The workers in Venezuela and Bolivia had the right idea when they stood up and
fought back. As workers continue to suffer here, a real and lasting solution to
the economic crisis demands a struggle to smash these heartless bloodsuckers of
the working class, take back the earth’s natural resources, and build a
world where the ruthlessness, exploitation, and corruption incarnated in
ExxonMobil can no longer exist.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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