CNN

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Iraq is raking in more money from oil exports than it is spending, amassing a projected four-year budget surplus of up to $80 billion, U.S. auditors reported Tuesday.

Leading members of Congress, noting that Washington is paying for reconstruction in Iraq, expressed outrage at the assessment. One called the findings "inexcusable."

"We should not be paying for Iraqi projects while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank, including outrageous profits from $4-a-gallon gas prices in the U.S.," said Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We should require that U.S. taxpayers be reimbursed for the cost of large projects."

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There's a lot wrong with this world. There's nothing wrong with the article per se... it seems to be describing a situation, like what you would find in a sanitary encyclopedia entry on sadism. The words of Levin make me ill.

[ 18 August 2008: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
Funny that the same people think that reparations for slavery are completely unjustified. Or that Land Claims (or whatever the equivalent in the US is) are unjustified. Just goes to show that rich white men feel that they are the rightful owners of everyone and everything.

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Think Again

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Yesterday, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) appeared on a C-SPAN Newsmakers roundtable and defended Exxon Mobil’s recent record-setting quarterly profit of $11.7 billion. Blunt tried to minimize the wealth and influence of Exxon, then went on to blast the company’s critics, saying they should be overjoyed that an “American company made money”:

... According to Petroleum Intelligence Weekly’s 2007 ranking of the world’s 50 largest oil companies, Exxon ranked third. It beat out state-owned companies such as CNPC (China) and Gazprom (Russia). In Fortune’s 2008 list of America’s top corporations, Exxon ranked second overall and first among petroleum refiners.

It’s astonishing that Blunt could claim, with a straight face, that Exxon’s massive profits are good for America. Sure, the company’s stockholders are getting rich. But most Americans continue to pay skyrocketing gas prices. Exxon is certainly not giving back to the American public either. ABC recently reported that the company has invested just 1 percent of its profits on alternative energy sources.

... Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), whom Blunt supports, has a plan to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. It would give nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to the six largest oil companies.

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2. Guess he and others who agree with him forget who destroyed(ing) the country.

3. Americans are making money off of the 4/barrell, after all oil is still bought and sold in USA dollars.

4. Seems they want to triple dip.

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Originally posted by remind:
1. What reconstruction, they are still busy destroying the country?

2. Guess he and others who agree with him forget who destroyed(ing) the country.

3. Americans are making money off of the 4/barrell, after all oil is still bought and sold in USA dollars.

4. Seems they want to triple dip.

5. Next thing you know they will be billing Iraqis for their occupation of the country.

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I think the kind of exploitation advocated by Democratic senator Carl Levin is even worse, as it is more blatant and direct and should be harder to camouflage behind malicious propaganda.

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It's actually exactly the same as land claims. Invade a place, destroy it, then charge the inhabitants for the reconstruction. The government in Canada "lends" millions to First Nations to pay legal and research fees for land claims, money that goes right back to settlers and comes out of the claim - ingenious.

And as for slavery reparations... the US and Canada were built with slave labour. And minimum wage (if you consider that it is less than the cost of living) is a continuation of this.

Exxon-Mobil and BP? or Shell? signed similar crooked PSA agreements with Russia for Sakhalin Island oil and gas development in the early part of the 1990's, a time when Russia was at a disadvantage economically. This colder war is on now because Putin's crew cancelled those crooked deals and citing that they were simply using free market tools at every country's disposal for taxing carbon exports. The Russians have since built up a sizable oil stabilization fund based on socialist Norway's natural resource tax regime.

The Yanks won't do anything meaningful for Iraqis. In fact, corporate jackals and their hirelings in US government will make Iraqis pay corporate jackals and shadow gov for bombing, mass murder, and military occupation expenses incurred by Murder Inc.

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
Funny that the same people think that reparations for slavery are completely unjustified. Or that Land Claims (or whatever the equivalent in the US is) are unjustified. Just goes to show that rich white men feel that they are the rightful owners of everyone and everything.

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Robert Mugabe and Margaret Thatcher feel the same way as the rich white men you refer to. This fact does not deny the existence of racism, but it does show that class arrogance and imperialism is not born from racism. The class struggle is the root cause of political repression in modern society.

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Originally posted by Robespierre:

Robert Mugabe and Margaret Thatcher feel the same way as the rich white men you refer to. This fact does not deny the existence of racism, but it does show that class arrogance and imperialism is not born from racism.

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And pointing to two examples of non-white non-man doesn't take away Le Tele's valid point. The world of capital success was formed in the West (Europe and occupied North America) and dominated by white male entitlement. Just because a white woman, or a man of colour gains access to this power and corruption doesn't negate the reality of who runs the show, and in whose interest it serves.

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The class struggle is the root cause of political repression in modern society.

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I posted an article yesterday on how the US had spent $650 billion on missile defense and yet can't or won't afford universal health care. But that monstrous waste of money will never be viewed through the same lens as Saddam's palaces, for example.

Because what we do, in the rich West, is never held to the same standards as what they do in the exploited and oppressed South from where we derive a great portion of our energy and raw materials.

[ 19 August 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:

Um, no it isn't. But that's thread drift, and a fight that's been had a few times before on babble.

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:
posted by Robespierre: Robert Mugabe and Margaret Thatcher feel the same way as the rich white men you refer to. This fact does not deny the existence of racism, but it does show that class arrogance and imperialism is not born from racism.

Le Tele never said any such thing.

And pointing to two examples of non-white non-man doesn't take away Le Tele's valid point. The world of capital success was formed in the West (Europe and occupied North America) and dominated by white male entitlement. Just because a white woman, or a man of colour gains access to this power and corruption doesn't negate the reality of who runs the show, and in whose interest it serves.

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BCG, I never said that Le Tele did say such a thing, I said it. Furthermore, I'm not sure what Le Tele's entire world view is, but his comment above suggests that a sense of entitlement by white men is solely what prompts their arrogant expectation that Iraq should pay the U.S. My point here is not that racism doesn't play a part in the attitude these white men have, it is that any victor will believ he or she is entitled to the spoils regardless of the race of the loser, and that racism is secondary to that---not invalid as a contributing factor, but not primary.

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:
posted by Robespierre: The class struggle is the root cause of political repression in modern society.

Um, no it isn't. But that's thread drift, and a fight that's been had a few times before on babble.

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It's not thread drift to discuss interelated issues, and this is on topic as could ever be: I reject the assumption that racism can be the sole motivation behind the group of American white men expecting Iraqi non-white persons to pay for the war. History is jam packed with examples to support me, I mentioned only two recent ones for the sake brevity.

I suggest, as usually happens when this discussion arises, that you first read anything by bell hooks that you can get your hands on, and then start a new thread so as not to distract from these obnoxious rich white men who believe they are entitled to the world--especially the poor, brown and female parts of it.

[ 19 August 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

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Robespierre: I reject the assumption that racism can be the sole motivation behind the group of American white men expecting Iraqi non-white persons to pay for the war.

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[ 19 August 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]