Nationalize the Oil Companies

I remember many years ago how we were shocked and outraged that sovereign countries such as Libya took over ownership and operation of the oil fields in their own country. How dare they treat the American corporations that way:  didn’t God give America the right to all the fossil fuels around the planet?

But back then it was not so obvious that the United States was actually a greedy, self-serving colonial empire that would eventually ignore all forms of decency and fair-play just so it could continue to dominate the world and assure obscene profits for a very few people who actually ran the country and gave scant lip-service to such concepts as Freedom and Democracy.

Now the United States is on the slippery slope to second or maybe even third-world status and may well implode financially long before those Twinkies reach the end of their shelf-life. What to do?

Well, an interesting suggestion is that it is America’s turn to nationalize the oil industry. Why should all of those obscene profits go to a few robber barons when they could go to pay-down the deficit, shore up Medicare and Social Security, and improve the lives of all Americans and not just the few?

It’s a winner in my book:  we use the profits for the good of the entire country, the big oil companies weren’t paying much in taxes so there is no loss there, the subsidies are no longer needed, we eliminate much of the corruption in politics , and office space is available on K Street.

Then Washington will control both sides of the equation that will eventually lead to the country breaking free of the petrochemical nipple. How much easier it will be to introduce alternative energy sources when there is no longer a self-serving oil industry to fight the alternatives every step of the way.

It could work and the country might be saved … who’s with me?