Let's call it for what it is. For the past, roughly, 7 or 8 years, I feel this country has entered a civil war. Civil War - without the cannon and Enfield rifles, perhaps, but it is a civil war. Instead of north and south, it's left and right. Red and Blue. Fox vs. MSNBC. A huge divide has opened, in large part based upon the wealth divide, and in large part due to the desperate, frightened attempts of the right to resist social changes that are inexorable, to hold onto an oil-dependent economy and an America which, perhaps, once was, and in part due to the frustrated anger of the left with which they see chances for a better America squandered by regression and disregard for civil rights, science, and waste of national resources in pursuit of misguided foreign adventures. Is this ideological war worse than it has been in recent generations? What will it take to reach a semblance of an armistice?
If we stopped production of Fuel Burning Cars, Trains, Planes, etc. America would fall into an unemployment rate like we've never seen. Exxon Mobil is the largest company in the world with 82,000 employees not including sub contractors. Chevron employs approximately 62,000 people (of which approximately 31,000 are employed in U.S. operations). Again, not including sub contractors. B.P. employs 85,700. Royal Dutch Shell employs 87,000. None of the numbers include Sub Contractors or Gas Station Employees. America also wanted to decrease dependence on foreign oil. I'm not a huge fan of Hydrofracking, especially the way it's done now with the exception of Chevron's Crush method. I'm just wondering how and where we could put those employees. It certainly doesn't take that many people to work on wind farms, produce batteries, etc. Do you suggest sending them to college if they haven't already been. Look at what's happening at colleges. If Mom and Dad can't afford it and the student doesn't get a full scholarship or a Grant, they have to borrow the money and seldom can they pay it back. I think America is in the hole for a trillion dollars from failure to pay back student loans. Does America need change? Of course it does. A country can't survive without change. But it needs to be changed over time. Obamacare is a joke. This is socialized medicine. Take a good look at Canada's healthcare. Micheal Moore showed how Canada and other countries didn't have to pay for medical care. He made it look great, but he failed to go to the hospital or visit someone with cancer. A cancer patient has to wait months to get treatments. My father worked for Chevron for almost 41 years, he came out of retirement a year ago and is working for Swift Engineering. A subcontractor for B.P. at their Whiting, Indiana plant. He saved 1.75 million working at Chevron and is making 75 an hour, time and a half overtime ( he works a lot of overtime ) and gets 135 per diem for housing, food, clothing, gas, etc. He's made a little over 250,000 this past year. Not bad for a man who got a High School Diploma and an Associates Degree from a local community college. Americans don't take pride in their work like in early America to the 90's. It's sad. I don't totally disagree with you but the Oil Companies have to stay until we find job's for that many people.
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