Sors: Ir-Rapport Hartmann
If you want to trigger a conservative, just suggest nationalizing the US gas and oil industry. “Venezuela!” they’ll scream hysterically, perhaps adding a few, “Iran!” squeals. (Somehow, they always forget to yell about Norway…)
Within minutes they’ll be croaking about that time back in 2008 when Maxine Waters — a Black woman with power and therefore the most terrifying thing Republicans can imagine — threatened oil industry CEOs who were giving Congress deliberately deceptive and incomplete answers with “socializing… taking over and the government running all your companies.”
Immediately, Fox “News” was all over it, as were dozens of rightwing sites.
In that, they’ve completely ignored (or never knew) the long American history of taking over industries during a time of national crisis.
And, as we re-enter a cold war with Russia and face unprecedented human death and property damage from Tibdil fil-klima, it’s hard to claim we’re not in the midst of a national crisis that has fossil fuels at its foundation.
We’re at least 40 years behind where we should be in dealing with the fossil fuel/global warming crisis because giant oil companies have run massive disinformation campaigns while funding the political careers of hacks in Congress willing to lie to the public for them.
President Jimmy Carter, for example, declared a national crisis in 1979 and proposed legislation to create “this nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.”
FDR had sold bonds to the public to fund a government corporation that would develop synthetic rubber for fighter jet tires back in the day, and Carter wanted to do the same to end our dependence on fossil fuels:
“Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II,” Carter said, “so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war.
F'dak l-istess July 15, 1979 speech, he proposed the government issue bonds that would fund:
“[T]he creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.”
It all came crashing down 42 years ago this coming January when the fossil fuel industry’s candidate, Ronald Reagan, replaced Carter, killed the solar bank and the bond program, and even took Carter’s solar panels off the roof of the White House.
If ever there was an industry that merited nationalization, the fossil fuel industry is it. They manipulate prices to both enhance profits and swing elections, bribe their way through the halls of Congress, and pump out a steady stream of lies about climate change. All while pouring hundreds of billions into the money bins of their morbidly rich CEOs, shareholders, and senior executives.
America has a long and proud history of taking on companies that put profits over the public good during a time of crisis. And we could acquire controlling interest of the nation’s three largest fossil fuel players — ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips — for, according to Robert Pollin writing at Il-Prospett Amerikan, fewer than a half-trillion dollars.
For less than a quarter of the cost of Trump’s billionaire tax cuts we could rapidly move a long way toward saving our nation and the world from climate destruction. But is it even possible? Turns out that history says an emphatic, “Yes!”
During the crisis of World War I, Il-President Woodrow Wilson nazzjonalizzati il-ferroviji tal-pajjiż, il-kumpaniji tat-telefon, u l-operaturi tat-telegrafu. Huwa għamel l-istess man-netwerks tar-radju u l-istazzjonijiet tar-radju tan-nazzjon. Kollha kienu lura għal sjieda privata wara l-gwerra, iżda dik in-nazzjonalizzazzjoni temporanja għenet biex l-Amerika tgħaddi mill-kriżi.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt did the same during World War II, nazzjonalizzanti manifatturi tal-ajruplani, manifatturi tal-pistoli, aktar minn 3,300 minjiera, ferroviji tan-nazzjon, għexieren ta 'kumpaniji taż-żejt, Western Electric Co., Hughes Tool Co., Goodyear Tire and Rubber, u anke wieħed mill-akbar ħwienet tal-bejgħ bl-imnut tan-nazzjon, Montgomery Ward. Hu wkoll nazzjonalizzati 17-il kumpanija barranija li jagħmlu negozju fl-Istati Uniti.
After FDR died, Il-President Harry Truman continued seizing companies that were using the war as an excuse to jack up profits to the detriment of the nation. He nazzjonalizzati faċilitajiet tal-ippakkjar tal-laħam madwar il-pajjiż, il-Kumpanija Monongahela Railroad, l-imtieħen tal-azzar tan-nazzjon, u mijiet ta 'kumpaniji tal-ferroviji.
Like with Wilson’s nationalizations, nearly all were returned to the private sector after the war was over, although it took until 1965 before all were privatized. Many had had their boards of directors and senior management replaced with people who’d put the interests of the nation ahead of their greed for profits.
In the 1970s, in the wake of the collapse of the Penn Central Railroad, President Richard Nixon oversaw the voluntary nationalization and transfer of 20 railroads into the newly created National Rail Passenger Corporation, now known as Amtrak.
Fl-1974 il-Kungress ħoloq entità nazzjonalizzata oħra biex tittratta l-ferroviji tal-merkanzija, il-Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), li assorbiet għexieren ta 'kumpaniji ferrovjarji li kienu qed ifallu. Conrail kienet miżmuma mill-gvern sal-1987, meta ġiet privatizzata fl-akbar IPO ta' dak iż-żmien fl-istorja Amerikana.
In 1984, when the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company was in a crisis, tal-President Ronald Reagan administration oversaw the FDIC nationalizing it by acquiring an 80 percent ownership share in the company; it wasn’t re-privatized until 1991, and was bought by Bank of America in 1994.
Also in the 1980s, after Reagan recklessly deregulated the Savings & Loan industry, bankers made off with billions leaving the wreckage of crushed S&Ls all across the nation.
When the government agency that insured them, FSLIC, went bankrupt itself in 1987, Reagan and Congress created an umbrella agency — the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) — to nationalize 747 of America’s S&Ls with assets of over $400 billion. Their assets were sold back into the private market in 1995 as the RTC shut itself down, having averted a 1929-style banking crisis through temporary nationalization.
Meta George W. Bush was handed the White House by 5 Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, the nation’s airline security system was entirely in private hands.
They failed miserably on 9/11, so Bush didn’t even bother with the normal acquisition process that would protect the hundreds of small contractors running security at airports across the nation: he simply nationalized the entire system and created a government agency, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to take over airport and airline security.
President Bush also partially nationalized the nation’s airlines, creating the Air Transportation Stabilization Board that traded around $10 billion in loans to airlines in crisis (air traffic collapsed after 9/11) in exchange for company stock. We (through our government) ended up holding 7.64 million shares in US Airways, 18.7 million shares of America West Airlines, 3.45 million shares in Frontier Airlines, 1.47 million shares in American TransAir, and 2.38 million shares in World Airways.
Congress had deregulated the nation’s banks in 1999 when Republicans pushed through an end to the Glass-Steagall Act and Bill Clinton signed it into law. The resulting banking system crash in 2008 forced the Bush administration to nationalize the country’s two largest mortgage lenders (they held about 40% of all US mortgages), Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
il Bush administration then additionally nationalized a 77.9% share in AIG, a 36% share of Citigroup, and a 73.5% share of GMAC, forcing out GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner, who’d been a particularly terrible manager of that company and was actively lobbying against what Bush thought were America’s interests.
As President Barack Obama came into office in 2009, GM and Chrysler were on the brink of collapse. His administration created a new company, NGMCO, Inc., that nationalized the assets of GM and was 60.8% owned by the federal government.
GM kien finalment privatizzat mill-ġdid għal kollox mill-amministrazzjoni Obama fl-2013. Chrysler għaddiet minn proċess simili, għalkemm kemm l-UAW kif ukoll il-gvern Kanadiż kienu sidien parzjali meta ġiet nazzjonalizzata temporanjament.
Thomas M. Hanna, Direttur tar-Riċerka fi Il-Kollaborattiva tad-Demokrazija u awtur ta ' Il-Ġid Komuni tagħna: Ir-Ritorn tas-Sjieda Pubblika fl-Istati Uniti, ġabar il-biċċa l-kbira tad-dejta ta’ hawn fuq f’karta brillanti intitolata “Storja tan-Nazzjonalizzazzjoni fl-Istati Uniti 1917-2009".
Toward its end, he summarizes brilliantly the case for nationalizing — perhaps only temporarily — America’s largest oil and gas companies:
“Fi żminijiet bħal dawn ta’ kriżi politika u ekonomika, dawk li jfasslu l-politika tal-persważjonijiet ideoloġiċi kollha fl-Istati Uniti qatt ma qagħdu lura milli jużaw waħda mill-aktar għodod b’saħħithom għad-dispożizzjoni tagħhom: n-nazzjonalizzazzjoni ta’ intrapriżi privati u assi.
“Dan kien jinkludi lid-Demokratiku Woodrow Wilson, li nazzjonalizza l-ferroviji, u l-industriji tat-telefon, tat-telegrafu u tar-radju (fost oħrajn), u r-Repubblikan Ronald Reagan, li nazzjonalizza bank nazzjonali ewlieni; id-Demokratiku Franklin D. Roosevelt, li nazzjonalizza għexieren ta’ faċilitajiet tal-minjieri u tal-manifattura, u r-Repubblikan George W. Bush, li nazzjonalizza s-sigurtà tal-ajruport u diversi istituzzjonijiet finanzjarji ewlenin; id-Demokratiku Barack Obama, li nazzjonalizza lill-manifatturi tal-karozzi, u r-Repubblikan Richard Nixon, li nazzjonalizza s-servizz ferrovjarju kollu tal-passiġġieri.”
Today’s climate crisis dwarfs the threat of Nazism in the 1940s, Bin Laden’s 9/11 attack, or the massive bank robberies that took place during the Reagan and Bush administrations. It literally threatens all life on Earth.
Yet the fossil fuel industry continues to fund climate denial and lobby against any meaningful solutions, as we saw when every Republican in the Senate along with Joe Manchin killed the $500 billion investment in clean energy the Biden administration proposed in their Rikostruzzjoni aħjar leġiżlazzjoni.
Squeals of “socialism!” and “Venezuela!” aside, we know how to nationalize industries that are working against our nation’s interests and have done it before, repeatedly.
This time it’s not just about saving our banks or fighting a war. This time, it’s about saving the world.
Nationalize the fossil fuel industry!
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