Who are the real Americans? Are they the men who comprise the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the organization that lobbied against the 2009 safety regulations for places like the fertilizer plant in Texas that just blew up? They call themselves the “United States” Chamber of Commerce because they want to sound like those little local groups that promote small town business and benefit local needs, but this group promotes only billion dollar business and most of the time at the cost of living safely in small towns throughout the country that are unfortunate enough to harbor businesses like that ill fated fertilizer company that casually killed scores of neighbors and destroyed the town in which it was located.
This was not an isolated incident. Oh sure there haven’t been many fertilizer plant explosions in this country recently but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been busy screwing up American life for any number of our citizens for many years. They do it so big businesses can increase their profits at the cost of safety to their employees and to the towns that surround them. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is busy destroying American’s quality of life so that big business can reap billions in profit at the cost of those who happen to live within a gunshot of their facilities.
The plant in question manufactured explosive materials but despite the obvious danger of such a business they had not been inspected since 1985. That’s right, a business that was waiting to blow up in the faces of those surrounding it had not had a safety inspection in 28 years. Why, because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had spent millions and successfully lobbied against those inspections, claiming they were an unnecessary interruption of business. Unnecessary to the guys in the cozy U.S. Chamber of Commerce offices, maybe, but not it seems to the people who lived around an exploding fertilizer plant.
But this was not the only highlight of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s reel of shame. In 2002 and 2003 they successfully lobbied the Bush administration to eliminate the need for offshore oil drilling operations to install acoustic blowout protection switches. Said switches shut off oil blowouts like the BP Deepwater Horizon gulf disaster. The blowout switches would have cost BP about a half a million bucks. The blowout caused by their not being installed, cost BP billions and the gulf coast states much, much more. But, what the hell, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce got their way. Who cares if it destroyed three states.
But wait, there’s more. By fighting to get the government to identify tar sands as a substance other than oil, the U.S Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates are setting up the entire center of the country to be ruined by the greatest man made disaster that it’s possible to create without an atomic weapon.
By declaring that tar sands are not oil, the oil companies get to save the money that they would normally have to pay to insure against oil leaks from their pipelines. That means that when Keystone pops a hole, and it’s definitely a when, not an if, in their proposed pipeline and they spill whatever that shit is that they are transporting and when that noxious substance leaks into the Oglala Aquifer and poisons the water system of one third of the country, there will be no insurance, government or private to cover the calamity. We will be facing the largest man made disaster in national history. Keystone will declare bankruptcy and be out of the picture and we, the taxpayers will be left holding the bag.
And how will that have happened? Simple, the U.S Chamber of Commerce will have done their job and protected the profits of oil companies, pipeline companies and refining companies, all to the detriment of the people who were unfortunate enough to be in their way, and the expense of the American taxpayer.
Carl Gibson, in his article on this very same subject uses the analogy of the terrorist brothers who blew up a part of Boston and have been attacked universally for the horror they have perpetrated. That’s right, the horror. They killed four people. How many thousands of people, Gibson points out, have been killed by the greedy policies of the U.S Chamber of Commerce?
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Where do these un-American pigs get off calling themselves the United States anything? They are as good for this country as the madmen who crashed their planes into the World Trade Center. In pursuing their selfish goals, they have displayed nothing but hatred for the American people and obeisance to the greedy corporate plunderers they serve. The achievement of their goals, have pressed heavily on the backs of the people of this nation. The fact that they incorporate the name United States as part of their degenerate identity is a disgrace and an insult to every citizen of this country.