Oiligarchy

I drive past the strip of multinational corporations on 104. The golden arches of McDonald’s fill my rearview mirror. I remember Thomas L. Friedman’s article “A Manifesto for the Fast World.” Friedman wrote, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist — McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15.” Friedman summarized what Major General Smedly Butler wrote in “War is a Racket.” “I spent most of my [33 years in the Marine Corps] being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” General Butler made it clear corporate interests shape US foreign policy. The major media outlets dutifully ignored the hidden fist. However, international media organizations still paid attention. Last week, TeleSUR reported, “ExxonMobil has been conspiring against Venezuela for more than a decade, aiming to undermine its territorial integrity, steal its resources, (and) cause internal political destabilization.”

In 1922, Venezuela discovered black gold: petroleum. According to Barron’s, Venezuela “sits on the world’s largest proven reserves of oil.” By 1957, more than half of Exxon’s global profits came from Venezuela. Back then, Exxon was the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Republican senator William P. Frye of Maine said the Standard Oil Company was “the greatest monopoly today in the United States of America, a power which makes itself felt in every inch of territory in this whole republic, a power which controls business, railroads, men and things.” Fortune Magazine reported ExxonMobil was “the most powerful U.S. corporation by just about any metric.”

Eduardo Galeano wrote “Standard Oil… seat and unseat kings and presidents, finance palace plots and coups d’etat, have innumerable generals, ministers, and James Bonds at their command, and make decisions about peace or war in every field and every language.” Standard Oil of New Jersey became ExxonMobil in 1999. They continued to seat and unseat kings and presidents. Time Magazine reported, “The U.S. gave its tacit approval of a coup attempt against Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez in 2002.” There was another US-backed coup in Venezuela in 2019. Former Director of the CIA Mike Pompeo admitted there were plans to overthrow the government in his memoir “Never Give an Inch.” “At various points, President Trump, John Bolton, and I suggested the military option for Venezuela.”

To overthrow the government, Washington started a maximum pressure campaign with sanctions. The Washington Post wrote sanctions on Venezuela “contributed to an economic contraction roughly three times as large as that caused by the Great Depression in the United States.” The Center for Economic and Policy Research revealed “The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country.” Washington and ExxonMobil continue to try to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Meanwhile, most Americans feel the squeeze at the pump. The interests of Wall Street matter more than the interests of the people.

Anton Porcari

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