People Who Threaten Powerful Organizations Do So At Their Peril
Frequent commenter Les Blevins suggests: Craig, I suggest you require all commenters to use their real names.
I’m not sure how I could do that—even if I thought it was a good idea. I really don’t have a problem with anonymity; I can understand that some people with radical views (in any direction) don’t want to be identified.
I use my real name, but I’m definitely putting myself in some level of jeopardy, with all my rants about the oil companies and the U.S. government.
A couple of years ago, a guy from South Carolina called me and said, “You don’t know me, but the reason I’m calling is that your name came up twice in the last 24 hours. I happen to own a whole bunch of stock in Shell Oil. I was on a conference call with the company’s executives and they were talking about Craig Shields and 2GreenEnergy.” He couldn’t remember the content of the conversation (or at least he claimed not to) but let’s face facts: that’s not good. A friend who tried to reassure me, explained that perhaps they’re taking your advice and want to become more eco-responsible. That’s possible, I suppose, but extremely improbable.
And Jeez Louise (or however that’s written). Given what we’ve learned recently from Edward Snowden (pictured) and other whistle-blowers, I’d be shocked if the U.S. government isn’t monitoring every keystroke I make as I write this post.
If it’s not perfectly clear how horribly wrong this is, I refer you to this incredible TED talk by Glenn Greenwald: “Why Privacy Matters.”
As I’ve written before, elsewhere…
If you’re not on somebody’s list, somewhere, you’re probably not doing your civic duty.
This is a bit tongue in cheek, of course, but not entirely so.
I’m also reminded of Gandhi – “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Don’t. Give. Up. 🙂
Excellent. I appreciate that.
People Who Threaten Powerful Organizations Do So At Their Peril you say? People Who Threaten Anyone Do So At Their Peril but that doesn’t slow me down because I have a fair amount of dedication to my cause rather than simply wanting to jaw-bone about it. I’ve been naming names (especially the Koch brothers but also Exxon, BP, Chevron etc. for years and years.
“Who will help me plant my corn?”
One day upon wandering out of Brownback’s barnyard the Little Red Hen found some corn lying along the road.
“Who will help me plant my corn?” said the little red hen.
“Not I,” said Exxon the fat cow.
“Not I,” said BP the black duck.
“Not I,” said Chevron the plump goose.
“Not us,” said the two smelly Koch brother pigs.
“Then I will do it myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did. She planted her corn, and it grew very tall and ripened into golden yellow grain.
“Who will help me reap my corn?” asked the little red hen.
“Not I,” said the black BP duck..
“Out of my classification,” said the smelly pigs.
“I’d lose my seniority,” said Exxon the fat cow.
“I’d lose my tax refunds,” said Chevron the plump goose.
“Then I will do it myself,” said the little red hen, and so she did.
At last it came time to bake some cornbread.
“Who will help me bake cornbread?” asked the little red hen.
“That would be overtime for me,” said Exxon the fat cow.
“I’d lose my tax exemptions,” said BP the black duck.
“We are dropouts and never learned to work,” said the smelly pigs.
“If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,” said Chevron the plump goose.
“Then I will do it by myself,” said the little red hen.
So she baked five corn loaves and held them up for all of her fat and smelly neighbors to see. Of course they wanted some. But the little red hen said, “No, I’ll eat all of them myself.”
“Excess profits!” cried the fat Exxon the fat cow.
“Capitalist leech!” screamed BP the black duck.
“I demand equal shares!” yelled Chevron the plump goose.
The smelly pigs just grunted in unison.
But they all yelled ‘Unfair’ to Congress and painted picket signs and marched around and around, shouting it wasn’t fair to them.
Soon many irate Republican farmers got the news and came to the barnyard and said to the little red hen, “You should not be so greedy.”
“But I grew the corn and baked the cornbread,” said the little red hen.
“Yes” said the farmers. “That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Under our taxation regulations, the productive workers must share the fruits of their labor with those who are rich by simply granting them the right to avoid paying their share of barnyard taxes.”
And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, “I am grateful, for I now understand why the fat, smelly and lazy ones out in the barnyard didn’t want to help me plant and grow my own corn and become independent.”
But she never again baked corn bread because she joined the Republicans “don’t tax me party” and they showed her how she too could live off of the efforts of others. And they all smiled and said; ‘Fairness’ had won out again.
Individual initiative soon died out, but nobody noticed; and perhaps no one really cared…so long as abundance for the rich’ was the rule of the barnyard, and the fat were never required to pay up on those bad barnyard taxes and everyone looked to a bright and prosperous future with no thought to the possibility the nation might not fare as well in the future as it always had.
IS THIS A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?
The moral if this story is; let’s not worry that Big Oil is profiting off the little people to the tune of billions and influencing Congress, let’s make their predatory Ponzi scheme obsolete.
We’re paying over $3.50 a gallon so BP, ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers can earn massive profits and keep the mega-bonuses flowing for company execs. Yet Republicans still want to shovel huge tax breaks to Big Oil and keep programs for the 98% of the people on the back burner.
Programs like the Affordable Care Act, Medicare for seniors, Aid for Poor women who need prenatal care? Sorry, your funding is on the chopping block. But nobody better touch those Big Oil tax breaks or impinge on the huge sums of money extracted from the public by big corporate interests and used to undermine the public interest and are now purported to be used under the guise of free speech.