The Gulf Oil disaster stands as proof that the corporate control of oil and energy is fundamental to the ongoing destruction of society, the environment, and life on earth. Oil is highly toxic and water is essential for life. The corporate control of each inevitably leads to disaster.
Oil is the principle fossil fuel that releases the carbon dioxide that causes global warming. The Niger Delta – like Louisiana, a vast maze of waterways at the mouth of a great river – has been horribly polluted by petroleum corporations, destroying one of the great fisheries of the world.
Oil production requires giant chimneys to burn the natural gas found intermixed with oil. These plumes burn 24 hours a day in Cancer Alley, which runs from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and in the Niger Delta where oil flaring forces 20.4 billion cubic meters of carbon dioxide a year into the atmosphere! (www.newsdesk.org/2002/11/natural_gas_bur/)
Oil companies today have a growing thirst for water. “Fracking” uses high pressure to inject millions of gallons of water, sand, and toxic chemicals into the ground to fracture the shale, releasing more natural gas into the well. Each “frack” makes unimaginable amounts of water permanently toxic. Private control of oil means that control of clean water is also lost to public control, something underscored by the British Petroleum (BP) disaster.
In the Gulf of Mexico, health agencies report increasing numbers of people are getting sick from polluted water and air. Human health should be the primary concern, but the whole disaster is being handled to guarantee the bottom line.
Lack of regulation
Oil companies refuse to spend money to guarantee safe production because it cuts into profits. Oil and its technology are virtually unregulated. Historically, governments have made some feeble attempts to figure out how to “regulate the petroleum industry.” But oil corporations today are more powerful than most nations, and they operate in dozens of countries.
For years, oil companies have been lusting after more off-shore drilling. Responding to intense industry lobbying, the Obama administration put up 53 million acres for lease in the Gulf alone in its first year and, according to Tim Dickinson in the June 2010 Rolling Stone article, "The Spill, the Scandal and the President", allowed BP to shave $500,000 off its overhead by deploying a blowout preventer without a remote-control trigger – a fail-safe measure required in many countries but not mandated in the U.S.
Unregulated petroleum production and usage can be toxic. Automobiles contribute mightily to the destruction of the atmosphere that we call global warming. Oil also produces the principle chemicals for all varieties of plastics. These leach into our foods from plastic packaging, playing a role in numerous horrific health issues. Pesticides, another oil product, are flagrantly used by corporate-controlled agribusiness.
Private Property is the Problem
Corporations control virtually all the natural resources and the tools and technologies humans have developed. These include oil, food production, forms of communications, medicines, the factories that produce the necessities of life, and all the electronic technology that could be transforming the world into a paradise. All this today is private property.
The word “private” comes from the Latin root “privare” which means to “deprive.” It is also the root of the word "privilege.” The capitalist class has seized the tools of society. Therefore, they claim the right to the bounty of nature and the very wealth of society. This is diverted into “private profit,” which means that the wealth is removed from society’s control.
Corporations are becoming toxic to the very planet and everything on it. The capitalist class abuses its control of all the wonderful technologies that people have developed. Antibiotics were a wonder of nature that humans harnessed to control disease. Corporate control has led to such uncontrolled usage that most no longer work at all.
Control of oil and water are global issues. Water is central to every issue of healing the environment. Free access to water is key to dealing with global warming. Water is also 70 percent of the human body. Corporate control of water is beginning to damage nature’s water cycle, just as corporate control of technology has damaged the climate.
Water: The Motor City Story
The New York Times reported in August, 2008 that banks and financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, the Carlyle Group and Morgan Stanley, have amassed a $250 million war chest to buy up “infrastructure” around the world, particularly water. If water is no longer a public service, then who will decide who gets access? The reality is if you can’t pay, corporations determine when you drink, bathe your kids, or if your house burns down. The public is bankrolling these corporations so that they can privatize and seize our public resources!
Having lost their tax base, cities like Detroit and Highland Park, Michigan, are faced with crumbling pipes in a decaying water infrastructure. The cities have responded by reneging on their responsibility to provide water. Multinational water companies have stepped in to take over the responsibility to provide water -- for a profit – demanding first that cities make iron-clad financial guarantees.
In 2001, management of the Detroit Water and Sewage Department was put in the hands of Thames Water Corporation. The new management demanded double-digit rate increases and launched a policy of debt collection and cut-offs.
The loss of water resulted in the loss of homes. The water managers added delinquent water bills to property taxes, driving them sky high. Then the government began to foreclose on people's homes when these were unpaid.
Paper Water, Paper Air
The bulk of the vast wealth that human society produces every year is diverted to corporations and ultimately to the tiny class that controls them. Instead of using this wealth for the benefit of humanity, they demand markets to speculate in.
California is chronically in drought. In 1994 government representatives and the corporate water oligarchy created a legal framework for “paper water.” These water futures are traded, transferred, bought and sold, and used as collateral on loans without any connection to actual water delivery. Today, California can deliver only half of the water it promises. The rest is used by real-estate speculators to “prove” that they have enough water to continue development.
This securitizing of water only furthers the parasitic casino economy driven by speculation. Speculative capital "securitizes" personal and public property in order to turn it into something that the casino economy can gamble on.
Across the globe, people are demanding that governments do something about global warming. This sentiment has been channeled into a scheme to “save the planet” by allowing corporations to trade “carbon futures.” This means that a corporation can pollute without regulation, as long as it buys up the government-issued “right” to pollute so much carbon dioxide. This creates a market for speculation and actually allows corporations to privatize the atmosphere!
Government diverts vast amounts of public wealth into private hands yearly. This shows the tremendous importance of the fight to nationalize the energy industries, water, and all natural resources in the interests of the public.
Political Struggle
Water and oil are either owned publicly or privately. Instead of denying its responsibility, government must provide open access to water and other necessities regardless of the ability to pay. What is the job of government, if not to guarantee the rights and well-being of the public?
Across the United States, government is converting public property into private, corporate property. As we organize to protect and expand the public domain, we are fighting for the future of humanity.
We will have to fight differently than we did in the 20th century, and take up the politics of class and power. The battles are no longer just against an employer, or even a social struggle against corporations in general. They are a battle against a State and government that is in the hands of the capitalist class.
For both oil and water, government and the State that serve the interests of the corporations and private property rather than the common people is the cause of the problem. This cannot be an economic battle against a single corporation. The battle is political – to demand and struggle for a State that guarantees the interests of the public over the interests of the corporations.
September.2010.Vol20.Ed5
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
P.O. Box 477113 Chicago, IL 60647 rally@lrna.org
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