The Double Standard of Energy Politics

The reactionary corporate establishment of the U.S. has some standard propaganda lines about energy that they repeat year after year, ad nauseam.

One is that solar and other such green energy technologies are not viable because of insoluble technical obstacles that make them uneconomical.

But then, those technologies haven't had billions and billions of dollars in government subsidies showered on them since 1950 to promote them and pay for research.

And here's an ACTUAL insoluble technology problem- containing highly radioactive wastes for thousands of years so they can't leak into the environment.

It can't be done. And there is no way to speed up the decay process of radioactive isotopes. The glib answer to that objection?

"We'll figure something out."

Right-wing business rags like the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and Forbes constantly run rants attacking the piddling government subsidies for green energy and saying those subsidies "prove" these technologies aren't viable, since they can't make it in "the market" on their own.

But they never call for an end to the billions of subsidies for nuclear. Or for oil, for that matter. Filthy rich oil corporations like ExxonMobil don't pay Federal taxes on their billions of profits- perfectly legally. Yet the corporate propagandists keep screeching that at 35%, the (strictly notional) U.S. corporate tax rate "is one of the highest in the world!!" But the actual rate for many big corporation is a big fat 0%. That's on their profits. And the New York Times just had a page one article on how GE pays nothing on their billions in profits. In fact, because of tax credits, the U.S. "owes" GE $3.2 billion, even though GE made $14.2 billion profit in 2010. This is because GE gets to write parts of U.S. tax law to benefit itself. And Obama is in bed with Jeffrey Immelt, boss of GE.  (But if you make, say, $200 a week gross working, after all the payroll tax deductions you're left with about $140.- better than a 25% gouge. And you're supposed to live on that.) [ See: "GE's Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether," New York Times, March 25, 2011.]

Then we have the Price-Anderson Act, originally passed in 1957 and still in effect, which caps the liability of the nuclear reactor owner/operators and those who build them at a small fraction of what the actual damage would be. Otherwise the utilities would never build nukes- the insurance would be prohibitively expensive.

Obama wants another $36 billion in loan subsidies for new nukes, on top of the billions he's already given them. At the same time, he's slashing aid for the poor, like home heating oil subsidies (let 'em freeze!). Oh, what a radical "socialist" he is. Amazing what dildoes American neofascists are. And how many millions of cretins there are who can believe such preposterous crap.

Obama pays Homage to GE boss Jeffrey Immelt: January 2011.

Obama appointed GE boss Immelt to some phony for-show panel grandiloquently titled the "President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness." On Immelt's perfect qualifications for this propaganda exercise, Obama opined, "He understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy.”

Meaning: he knows how to outsource American workers' jobs to China, Malaysia, and etc. And not pay taxes. Go U.S.A.!

Thus do our rulers try and dupe us into thinking that they're helping us while in fact making us poorer and enriching themselves. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "America."