Phillipe & Jorge rarely have reason to scream at our Congressional delegation. Like most Rhode Islanders, we believe that our boys in DC do a hell of a job looking out for our interests. But Big Oil’s record quarterly profits have us wondering just how badly the US public must be gouged before Senators Jack and Linc and Representatives Patrick and Jim raise holy hell and start working for consumer protection.
Let’s not hear the BS about hard it is to keep prices down when the cost of crude oil goes up. Let’s not blame it on the Middle East crisis, Hurricane Katrina, or how Lady In the Water tanked at the box office. Exxon Mobil said it earned $10.36 billion in the most recent period, the second largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded US company. How much of that profit went predominantly into the pockets of Exxon Mobil’s obscenely salaried top executives while we were all getting bent over at the local filling station? That muffled applause you heard was “Enron Ken” Lay trying to give his pals in the gated communities a standing ovation from his casket.
Meanwhile, these Dubya-backed Big Oil suits are laughing all the way to the bank, along with their partners in crime in the auto industry, who refuse to build autos with improved gas mileage. The craven oil cartel together earned an estimated $33.6 billion, a 32 percent increase.
Well, Messrs. Reed, Chafee, Kennedy, and Langevin, where indeed is the outrage? It is bad enough that Boy George and “Shots and Beers” Cheney are wholly owned subsidiaries of Big Oil, and the Bush family is ever so cozy with the Saudis, who formed the bulk of the 9/11 hijackers. Let’s hope that we in the Biggest Little have a bit more fortitude to deal with this extortion. We are waiting to hear your voices.
Ugly business
Your superior correspondents know that Hezbollah, not Israel, started the most recent horror in the Middle East, that Hezbollah is a hate-spewing terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and that the only sure end to this crisis is the total dismantling of Hezbollah. We still think, though, that Israel overplayed its hand. And the Bush Administration is totally complicit because of its reluctance to use its considerable influence with Israel to cool things down.
Perhaps Prime Minister Olmert, serving in the shadow of Ariel Sharon (the ultimate “Mr. Man”), feels an even greater need to exhibit aggression than someone like, say, the cowboy poseur we’re saddled with. The reality is that the world is not black and white. Hezbollah needs to be smashed and Israel needs to stand down. How one reconciles this puzzle, we don’t know. In the meantime, horror and tears fill Southern Lebanon and Haifa.
Despite our oft-critical appraisal of the state of Israel, P&J are keenly aware of how, for, at least a decade, there has been a blatant increase in that very special brand of hatred and bigotry known as anti-Semitism. This despicable bit of old time religion has reared its ugly head over and over for centuries, and the fact that it’s back and as virulent as ever is incredibly depressing.
