The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

BP Is More Powerful than Certain States

Jun 28, 2010

Just how “British” is BP? The initials stand for British Petroleum, and the company is 41% British-owned. But it is made up of several U.S. companies and is 40% U.S. owned! In the last ten years, BP merged with Amoco and Atlantic Richfield oil companies. In 1978, BP had already merged with Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of Ohio.

This British-American company trying to polish its image promised to provide 20 billion dollars to compensate the oil spill’s victims.

But these billions are just a drop in BP’s barrels of oil. This company is so large that its sales are measured in the HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars every year.

In Louisiana, and spreading toward Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the damage from the oil spill is ruining coast lines, beaches, flora, animals, fish and the livelihoods of millions of people.

There’s no doubt that BP will recover very well. It controls more than 40% of U.S. oil reserves from the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

And no one at any level of government is proposing to take its ill-gained wealth from BP permanently.