Domination of the U.S. by Corporations
M. Orhan Tarhan
May 31, 2007
As I was getting ready to move to the United States in 1953, I visited in Ankara the father of my good friend from high school, Mr. Memduh Shevket Esendal. Of course, he wished me much success in my new job, then said: “I thought you should know how the country you are going to live in is governed. U.S. citizens believe that the U.S.A. is a republic and a democracy. But this is not the whole story. Behind the curtains, it is the petroleum industry that runs the foreign policy of the country.” I had great respect for Mr. Esendal. He had been the Secretary General of the only party in Turkey, the People’s Republican Party. Still I took his statement with a grain of salt. But now after 54 years, I think that the old gentleman had a good point.
We all know how we elect our politicians. They need money to be elected. We citizens can provide a tiny part of it, while corporations do provide fortunes. Under these conditions we can hardly compete for the politician’s loyalty with the corporations. The petroleum industry is composed of many very large corporations that of course wield considerable influence on our government. By the way this is true for all large corporations.
When scientists have some idea on a chemical or physical phenomenon, but are not sure, they form a hypothesis and they apply it on the phenomenon and check whether the data they obtain fit into the hypothesis, or “verify” the hypothesis. As long as the hypothesis is verified, they take it as a good representation of the phenomenon. But if some data fail to verify the hypothesis, that hypothesis is abandoned and a new one is formed.
Let us assume that the “domination of the U.S. by the petroleum Industry” is our hypothesis and let us try to find information that verify it and some that don’t verify it. (1) President Bush’s insistence in staying in Iraq in spite of the war going very badly, and in spite of the American people’s showing by their votes that they want to pull our soldiers out of Iraq, can be only to keep the oil. You see, the whole United States does not have enough clout on the president as the petroleum industry.
(2) The U.S. government has never increased the mileage/gallon of American cars to the level of European cars, obviously not to decrease oil consumption.
(3) When the U.S. Army occupied Iraq, it tolerated the looting of everything, except the oil ministry in Bagdad.
(4) Can Dundar in Milliyet (Turkey), reporting on 1/09/07 from the “Independent” (UK) discussed the new Draft Iraqi Petroleum Law that states, that each year, for 30 years, $75 billion of Iraqi oil revenues will be distributed to British and American companies such as BP, Shell, and Exxon and that it is called war bounty. In my logic, bounty should have gone to the Treasuries of the U.S. and UK not to private oil companies. But it would be foolish to look for logic in affairs concerning the Iraq War. The Independent concludes that the Iraq War was not fought for democracy, etc, but for oil.
The above four reasons clearly show that Mr. Esendal was quite on the mark in his opinion on the influence of oil companies on U.S. foreign policy. Today I would add that all large corporations, not only petroleum corporations, have great influence on the U.S. government through the lobbying process.
President Bush has been in oil business himself. Thus, he did not need any lobbyists to influence the government.
We all know how we elect our politicians. They need money to be elected. We citizens can provide a tiny part of it, while corporations do provide fortunes. Under these conditions we can hardly compete for the politician’s loyalty with the corporations. The petroleum industry is composed of many very large corporations that of course wield considerable influence on our government. By the way this is true for all large corporations.
When scientists have some idea on a chemical or physical phenomenon, but are not sure, they form a hypothesis and they apply it on the phenomenon and check whether the data they obtain fit into the hypothesis, or “verify” the hypothesis. As long as the hypothesis is verified, they take it as a good representation of the phenomenon. But if some data fail to verify the hypothesis, that hypothesis is abandoned and a new one is formed.
Let us assume that the “domination of the U.S. by the petroleum Industry” is our hypothesis and let us try to find information that verify it and some that don’t verify it. (1) President Bush’s insistence in staying in Iraq in spite of the war going very badly, and in spite of the American people’s showing by their votes that they want to pull our soldiers out of Iraq, can be only to keep the oil. You see, the whole United States does not have enough clout on the president as the petroleum industry.
(2) The U.S. government has never increased the mileage/gallon of American cars to the level of European cars, obviously not to decrease oil consumption.
(3) When the U.S. Army occupied Iraq, it tolerated the looting of everything, except the oil ministry in Bagdad.
(4) Can Dundar in Milliyet (Turkey), reporting on 1/09/07 from the “Independent” (UK) discussed the new Draft Iraqi Petroleum Law that states, that each year, for 30 years, $75 billion of Iraqi oil revenues will be distributed to British and American companies such as BP, Shell, and Exxon and that it is called war bounty. In my logic, bounty should have gone to the Treasuries of the U.S. and UK not to private oil companies. But it would be foolish to look for logic in affairs concerning the Iraq War. The Independent concludes that the Iraq War was not fought for democracy, etc, but for oil.
The above four reasons clearly show that Mr. Esendal was quite on the mark in his opinion on the influence of oil companies on U.S. foreign policy. Today I would add that all large corporations, not only petroleum corporations, have great influence on the U.S. government through the lobbying process.
President Bush has been in oil business himself. Thus, he did not need any lobbyists to influence the government.