by L.B. Woodgate

Created on: June 26, 2010   Last Updated: June 28, 2010

The Depleting Fossil-Aged Mentality That Permeates the Republican Leadership

A couple of recent moves by Republican politicos reveals but a sampling of the leadership style that is short-sighted and self-serving for the economic conditions we find ourselves in today.  It is a practice among them that has survived for decades but is more apparent when large numbers are unemployed and situations arise that threaten health and habitat for huge populations and vast land areas.  The era of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl of the 1930’s is the landmark period that exposed this seeming dispassionate side of many conservatives within the Republican Party.  It has revived itself following the current economic and environmental crises we find ourselves facing.

We see it in the Republicans in the U.S. Congress who withhold necessary funds to help unemployed people meet basic daily needs to sustain their families for a few extra months.  It’s alive and well with the Republican governors of Louisiana and Mississippi and their conservative supporters who have praised the federal court judge who has rejected the White House’s moratorium on new deep water drilling wells until we can figure out what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon; a tragedy that is contaminating the Gulf of Mexico with anywhere from 66,000 to as much as 100,000 barrels of oil a day.

There is no assurance that these rigs may not run into the same fate as the BP rig did but the judge who negated the moratorium feels it is a risk that others will have to take; a decision that is unsettling in light of the fact that the judge currently holds petroleum stocks in his portfolio that will be impacted by his decision.  It was recently revealed that he owned Exxon/Mobil stock the day he handed down his decision but sold his shares that morning.  One of the 33 new wells in the Gulf that was put on hold as a result of the moratorium was owned by the company that held the record for worst oil spill in America until BP’s recent failure took over that title – Exxon/Mobil.

As for the 1.2 million unemployed around this nation, mainly middle income families who are victims of the 2008 Recession, the money from unemployment insurance to brace them up during these hard times appears to be repugnant to those who have no problem at all subsidizing Big Oil to the tune of nearly $50 billion dollars a year.  Republicans in Congress feel the “small people”

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