THE CURRENT THEME
Entries from April 1, 2007 - May 1, 2007
Villains in the Republican Alliance
Crime and Payment at Exxon-Mobil
by Hank Edson, published May 1, 2007
Let us all take time today to revere one of the icons of corporate monstrosity, Exxon-Mobil. Exxon’s business practices are a catalogue of the spiritual crisis crippling the contributions American society was supposed to make to humanity. Rather than peace, prosperity and opportunity, Exxon devotes itself to economic oppression, the war, and the economic devastation of global warming. For Exxon-Mobil, these three crimes against human society are just a matter of basic business practice. Let’s take a look at these three business practices and then see just how well Corporate Crime pays:
1. Economic Oppression
The Biggest Business
Exxon-Mobil is the United States most valuable company worth $379 billion as of 2005. [1] In that year, Exxon Mobil recorded the largest annual profit for any corporation ever: $36 billion. [2] As if Exxon-Mobil didn’t already put the BIG in Big Business, its size is amplified by the lack of competition in the supply pipeline. The bottleneck in the supply pipeline is at the refinery stage. According to research conducted by the watchdog group, Public Citizen, in 2004, five companies controlled “48 percent of domestic oil production, 50 percent of refining, and 62 percent of the retail gasoline market.” [3] And since 2005, “the largest five control 55 percent of the refining market, and the largest 10 dominate 81.4 percent.” [4] ... read more!
Hank Edson
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Orwellian Doublespeak
George Orwellian Bush
by Hank Edson
Nothing better exemplifies the sinister intent of the Republican Alliance toward the people of the United States and the democracy that is theirs than the Alliance’s unabashed usage of Orwellian doublespeak. In his landmark distopian novel, 1984, about a world ruled by an authoritarian government, George Orwell foretold a world in which every evil of authoritarian rule was officially labeled it opposite. In the same way, the dehumanizing oppression of the government monitoring and controlling the most intimate details of each individual’s life was lovingly referred to as “Big Brother.”