I just finished reading a book, “Lincoln and his Wife’s Hometown”, because I need to maintain my status as a history nerd. Believe me, you have to read the right things if you want to keep the ladies away. Mary Todd Lincoln grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, the largest slaveholding area of the Bluegrass, and the book documents how Abraham Lincoln’s visits to this city defined and shaped his views on slavery. The book also made me realize how much the slaveholding power of the antebellum South reminds me of the oil industry today.
During its time, the slaveholding faction exerted more influence on the government than any other special interest group, just like the wildly wealthy and influential oil elite. They had so much power in fact, our founding fathers purposely excluded the word “slavery” from the Constitution in order to avoid the subject for fear of angering their slaveholding constituents. They thought if we avoided it, it would eventually just go away. Then the Civil War happened and George Washington felt pretty awkward in Heaven. That’s how powerful the slaveholding elite was – we fought a war over it. And God knows we would never fight a war to protect our oil interests. That would be silly.
In some respects, the Civil War was inevitable. Lincoln recognized that anti-slavery agitation in states where slavery already existed only sank it deeper into the vitals of the body politic. The more people castigated slaveholders, calling them wrong and immoral, the more entrenched these slaveholders became in their peculiar institution. That realization prompted Lincoln to give his famous speech in 1858 saying, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And he was right. We tried to compromise for years to appease the slaveholding minority, but it never worked. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which established the Mason Dixon line, was lauded by most at the time as an end to the slavery debate once and for all. Then thirty years, lots of frustration, and even some bloodshed later, the Compromise of 1850 repealed the Missouri Compromise and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act. The decade of the 1850s centered around little other than the slave question after it had supposedly been solved years earlier. Eventually Lincoln realized “this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” Thankfully, we exist all free. I’m pretty tan so I could very well be cooking dinner for a master right now if things had gone differently.
Similarly, the oil industry is not going to give up its domination without a fight. They are making too much money to do so, and who wants to give up a new Ferrari? Just like in the antebellum South, we are compromising to appeal to them, but in the end, these compromises are just delaying an inevitable showdown, not ending the need for it. For instance, our government has promoted and given tax breaks for hybrid cars. It seems like a nice gesture, but the problem is that hybrid cars run on oil. Some people argue that hybrid vehicles are a step in the right direction, but I disagree. They are a sideways step because they simply prolong our dependence on a finite resource. We give ourselves a pat on the back for being so environmentally conscience while the oil industry breathes a sigh of relief because at least it’s not wind or god forbid, solar energy. You know, something actually sustainable. They can’t make money off of sustainable, but the hybrid vehicle just gave the oil industry another 30 years to take baths in piles of money.
The main difference between oil and slavery is that we know for a fact oil isn’t going to last forever. Many proponents of slavery pointed to passages of the Bible and to periods of history like ancient Rome to argue that slavery was a human institution and would be around for all of humanity. But oil is a finite resource. Once we use it up, it’s done. A new system will have to be developed or it’s back to the Middle Ages for us all. Have fun pushing your handcarts and trying to avoid the Black Plague. We know this, and yet we still allow the oil industry to dictate and dominate our politics and corporations.
The oil industry is not just going to shut things down and say, “Thanks, we had a nice run on top.” Those on top don’t know how to retire – look at Brett Favre. Slaveholders worked solely in their own interest because an end to slavery meant the end of their personal prosperity and way of life. The oil industry is working with its own interests in mind too. Recently, it was exposed that BP pressed for the release of convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi who famously blew up a plane over Scotland and killed 270 people in 1988. I hate to break the illusion, but BP and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi are not old college buddies. BP wanted his release to secure valuable oil concessions in Libya. They put their own commercial interests above the safety of humanity. That makes me feel really safe. Maybe they can come over to my house and read me a bedtime story.
In the years before the Civil War, the slaveholding elite passed laws and lobbied the government to preserve their special interests. For instance, the state of Kentucky forbade free African Americans to settle within its borders and even rejected the ballot system of voting because it might prove injurious to slave interests. The oil industry has taken its cues from this example and has always acted with its own interests in mind. In the early 1900s, Los Angeles was covered with a network of rail lines and electric streetcars. At the time, only one in ten Americans owned cars and most relied on public transportation. But beginning in the 1930s, a network of businesses, including General Motors, Standard Oil, Mack Truck and Phillips Petroleum, began buying up and decommissioning the railway system in Los Angeles. Alfred Sloan, who ran General Motors at the time, was quoted as saying “If we can eliminate the rail alternative, we will create a new market for our cars.” Yeah, thanks for the favor oil industry; you really had my back on that one. Now when I’m late for an audition because I’ve been sitting in the same spot on the freeway for 45 minutes, I’m going to roll down my window and curse your name. Oh wait, I don’t want to roll down my window, there’s too much smog.
The oil industry wants us to believe it is on the side of progress, but that is simply not true. In July of this year, The Huffington Post revealed that the American Wetlands Foundation, an organization with the stated mission of preserving our nation’s delicate wetland ecosystem, received most of their funding primarily from major oil companies, the same companies that are largely responsible for the degradation of our coastal wetlands. Talk about a conflict of interest. That’s like trying to save the whales by showing how delicious they taste. The oil companies are holding up a giant sign that says “We care about the world” but they’ve got their fingers crossed behind their backs.
Regardless of the moral argument against slavery, there were numerous economic studies during the 1800s that proved that slavery was not a profitable economic system. A workforce being required to work against its will is not a productive workforce. However, slaveholders always had some convoluted argument to justify slavery’s existence. Slaves were lazy and wouldn’t work at all if free; anarchy would be the rule of the land if slavery ceased.
Nowadays, the oil system may be profitable, but for whom? The wealth divide in America is larger than it has ever been. And I, for one, am tired of eating Top Ramen.