[From the diaries by susanhu.]
Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman
and CEO Lee Raymond
Really look at this face. This is the face of greed. The face of the wealthy. The face of one who is pulling the strings in the world economy. This is symbolically the face of the devil.
LINK
To put Exxon’s performance into perspective, its third quarter revenue was greater than the annual gross domestic product of some of the largest oil producing nations, including the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The world’s largest publicly traded oil company also set a U.S. profit record with net income of almost $10 billion, according to Standard & Poor’s equity market analyst Howard Silverblatt.
Last night on CSPAN I watched a colloquy between Rep. Bernie Sanders of VT and Defacio of Oregon. They were telling us exactly what was going on with this administration- the gutting of America and democracy.
One statement they put forth was the widening gap between the rich or top 1% and the rest of us. One tenth of this 1% have more money than 2.5 billion people combined.
The only good thing I felt after listening to them was that they are as aware of the financial crisis that those of us at the bottom of the barrel are and will face for a long time to come because of the greed of a few. They are aware that many of us will have a cold difficult winter because of the high price of fuel.
I use to have to choose between food and medications. Now I will have choose between, food, fuel and forget the meds.
It chilled my heart.
Just sent that picture out, with explanation, to my conservative co-workers.
I’ll get them to connect the dots if it kills me!
everyone should be repeating at their “water coolers”, family gatherings, luncheon chats with co-workers, how we are just coming off paying over $3 a gallon for gas and Exxon/Mobil took in a profit of $10 billion for the quarter!
Make sure to tie in how these fat cats are buddy buddy with Bush and the Republicans and how they’re getting all the breaks while the average person is choosing between food, clothes and gas!
You forget that these people work really, really hard for their wealth and that God loves them in a special, special way.
It’s time for the slackers who work two or three minimum wage jobs and who are clearly not “annointed” to ask forgiveness for their complaining and their envy.
We have values in this country.
Single digit handicapper no doubt.
Be careful with the word you use!
I share your concerns and I am fighting (never hard enough!) the system this guy impersonates. I agree these persons are accountable for the situation we’re living today.
But I am very reluctant when you use the name devil (even symbolically). It belong to the field of religion, and I think it is dangerous to mix up politics and religious beliefs. That’s the way taliban and christian fundamentalists think. I do not believe in the devil, whereas I am aware of human inhumanity…
What I’m fighting for is a society where people, whoever they are (even me and you!), cannot reach this level of inequality and this level of unchecked power.
I hesitated using the word devil for the exact reasons you state- but I swear to- um- whatever- that that d word was the only one that fit. Please suggest a better word. Pig, sloth, were obvious.
Seriously give me a better descriptive word.
Though I like “devil” I get the point.
Pig and sloth are just too nice.
Would “the face of evil” do it? Because he is evil; not to mention down right ugly.
Nothing supernatural about greed….very very human.
The face of human greed works for me.
Thanks for this – definitely news to share.
As to an alternative word, how about “monster?”
I’m an atheist and very much a moral relativist. I’ve wrestled for a long with whether it was intellectually honest, at least from my point of view, to use words like “evil” when talking about the Bush gang and their corporate collaborators.
It is. There is no more descriptive word in our language for what they do. I certainly understand your point and hope no Christians take offense at its usage, but this is indeed the face of the devil.
Record profits created by our government, borne on the back of tax dollars you and I pay. Our government’s highest priority is to prop up Exxon through tough times, while giving Halliburton no-bid contracts to rebuild New Orleans…partially a result of their incompetence in the first place. They finally balked at suspending the minimum wage there, so instead more and more undocumented workers are taking the jobs that newly homeless Louisiana and Mississippi residents need, and these same workers are told to visit Red Cross centers for meals.
Your Red Cross donation is buying dinner for an illegal worker paid pennies a day in order to maximize the profits of megacorporations run by Bush’s friends. Hurting people to make others ridiculously rich is the devil’s work, and I’m glad you say so.
That visage displays all the corruption and over-indulgence of ancient Rome in its dying days.
I agree that at the bottom of most all that is wrong with this country is GREED. And that greed is based on a mindset of “scarcity” rather than “sufficiency.” I just finished reading a great book about this – “The Soul of Money” by Lynne Twist. I’d love to nominate it sometime for a BooTrib book discussion (I missed the diary about that this time, but will try to catch it next time). This is the November selection for the current book group that I belong to. We chose it to help us put some persepective on the upcoming holiday season.
I like to use animal metaphors. Calling such people pigs is an insult to a sweet and affectionate animal. I prefer to say worms and leeches; flies, fleas and mosquitos are bad, but not slimy and repulsive enough to convey all the ugliness inherent in that face. Melanchthon is right about using religious words, let’s avoid it. The thing is -how do we get away from this ‘greed is good’ society?
Thanks for a good diary, Rosee.
Early humans needed some instinct to make them gather more berries than they could eat, so they would have some when winter, or monsoon, or drought depleted the berry supply.
As humans have “progressed,” however, it has become kind of like body hair still found on some humans. It is no longer needed, either to keep them warm or to protect them from thorns as they slog through the bushes in search of berries, but unlike the body hair, the obsolete greed instinct has run amok, and is now the single greatest cause of all suffering on earth, and the single factor most likely to end human life.
I think this may be right. A lot of our problems seem rooted in “evolutionary psychology”. We are still acting, mostly unconsciously, on drives that suited people well about 80,000 years ago. They are often totally worthless today.
People frequently characterise greed as insatiable. There’s probably a good reason for this. In the paleolithic world it really was impossible to ever have “enough”. The world was a place of constant scarcity and fear. It never made sense to say “thus far and no further”. When you could gather no more wealth yourself you took it from others.
reminds me of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
This is great news people! Exxon finally has enough money to pay for the Valdez disaster clean up… billions and billions in damage and the taxpayers footed the majority of the bill… well, hell! now that they’re in the money and consumers are gouged at the pump, it’s time for the big boys to pay up.
Bush admits that he’s ever made a mistake in his life!
Oh I don’t know, I kind of like maggot.
Remember: boycott Exxon/Mobil (and tell them you are boycotting!). They lead the fight to suppress global warming research. They support Republicans. They tried to weasel out of paying damages from the Valdez fiasco. Etc.
Currently it seems Citgo and Sunoco are the best alternatives because they buy little of their oil from Saudi Arabia (note: they do buy some from the Middle East) and in the case of Sunoco they mostly support Democrats. Far more controversially, Chevron and BP are other alternatives. Both have some excellent environmental programs and practices, but they also have some terrible ones.
GOOD GOD YES! There is NO excuse… ‘cept if it’s the only gas station in 500 miles.
I haven’t purchased one drop of Exxon gasoline since the Valdez…..
Beautiful post. Hardly anything more one can say. You caught the moment: the glee, the vacuous expression, the flab. Daumier couldn’t have done it better.
And what kind of car do you drive?
And how far do you travel to work each day?
Did you, perhaps, buy a nice house in a fringe community so you could have a bigger place for the same cost as one closer in?
As the noted philosopher Pogo said:
“We have met the enemy and he is us”
For sixty years we in the US have pursued the suburban sprawl model of development and now we are stuck with a society where 60% of fuel costs are for transportation. If you are really upset about the state of the oil economy start working towards a redesign of society in a more sustainable fashion.
My first stab at some of these issues in this short essay:
No Growth Society
12 year old Plymouth, used and paid for. I am unhappily unemployed — but have never traveled more than 10 miles to work, have never owned the place in which I live.
I don’t have the power (i.e., the money) to “redesign” anything — too busy trying to take care of my family.
I drive a 12 year old saturn, and live on the other side of town from my job, so I spend a lot of time commuting. I shop at wal-mart because its cheaper. I live in the suburbs because rent costs less. I work at my current job, far from my house, because they hired me, and give me a check every 2 weeks, in exchange for making money for people I’ll never meet.
Now, let’s pretend that I live a lifestyle that is more acceptable to many here. Lets say that I work for a local non-profit, That I live 2 blocks from my work, That I bike or walk to work every day, and that I only buy groceries from the local organic food store. And that I become a vegatarian. And I heat my straw-bale home with solar cells. and so on.
What does that really accomplish? Well, I wouldn’t be “contributing” to the problem any more. And I could feel pretty good about that. I could ignore corporate america. I could get preachy without being hypocritical.
But at the end of the day, The system is still the same. Wal-mart will screw its employees, whether I shop there or not. Animals will be mistreated by corporations, whether I eat them afterwards or not. Oil companies will buy politicians and start wars and destroy the environment and screw the consumers with their prices, whether I drive or bike to work. Microsoft will still create bad products and charge inflated prices, even if I use only open-source software. The US government will start war after war to further their geopolitical and economic interests, even if I refuse to pay taxes.
Non-compliance is not enough. If you want to bike instead of driving, good for you, but if you want to end resource-imperialism, we’re going to have to do more. We’re going to have to fight the system directly. (through marches, mass organizing, strikes, etc.)
Wal-mart doesn’t care if you quit shopping there. Wal-mart DOES care when their employees unionize, and start making demands.
Our enemy is NOT us. Our enemy is our enemy.
(and ignoring them will NOT make them go away.)
I hear and agree wholeheartedly!
looks like Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo!