72 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
72 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 8 Num. 32
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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JIM HIGHTOWER: JULY 2, 1996
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===========================
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The debonair Fred Astair once observed, "The hardest job kids
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face today is learning good manners without seeing them."
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Good manners!? How about basic ethics? What are kids to think
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when they're told to "play by the rules," but then they see major
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oil companies getting away with cheating American taxpayers and
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other school children?
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I'm talking about Texaco, Shell, Mobil, Arco, Chevron, Exxon and
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others, who just underpaid the government by almost a billion
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dollars for oil they've taken from federal lands in California.
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The watchdog group called "POGO" -- Project On Government
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Oversight -- notes that in the fairy tale world where big oil and
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big government dance hand in hand, oil companies themselves are
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allowed to set the price on the oil they pump out of our public
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lands. And guess what? These oil giants have been setting the
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price at about 20 percent lower than market value. According to
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an independent audit done for the Department of Interior, ten oil
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companies have dodged $846 million in royalties and interest they
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owe to us. Of that sum, $165 million was ear-marked for
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California public schools -- a school system so strapped that
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three of its districts have declared bankruptcy.
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What do you think Uncle Sam would do if *you* were a deadbeat tax
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cheat? Reach down your throat and *turn* *you* *inside* *out*,
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that's what.
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But the Interior Department not only has looked the other way --
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letting the ten oil companies make off like bandits -- but it
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actually is trying to get President Clinton to approve a special
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"statute of limitations" that would prevent future
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administrations from even trying to collect the $846 million they
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owe.
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This is Jim Hightower saying, no wonder today's kids roll their
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eyes when adults lecture them about being "responsible citizens."
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"Sure," they say. "We'll follow the lead of Texaco, Shell,
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Mobil, Arco, Chevron, Exxon...."
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Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc?
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(1) telnet prairienet.org (2) logon as "visitor" (3) go citcom
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See also: http://www.europa.com/~johnlf/cn.html
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See also: ftp.shout.net pub/users/bigred
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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