Calling The Invisible Man

Like many of you (I would guess), I’ve seen our heating bills rise this winter, though thus far we’ve lucked out with mild temperatures. However, if this winter holds true to form, we will eventually be socked with an arctic blast over the coming weeks that will require consuming more heat to keep our toes from turning blue, as well as other areas of our anatomy. Also in this area, gas seems to have leveled off a bit near the $2.40-$2.50 a gallon range, depending on where you are (still below the post-Katrina gouging levels, but way too damn high).

When this sort of thing has happened in the past, Congress, leaping furiously into action in an effort to pretend to do its job, immediately schedules hearings, parades a bunch of crooks and cronies in front of the T.V. cameras while waxing its indignation in the most dramatic manner possible, and then goes back to sleep for awhile. This was in effect when the Senate Energy Committee held hearings last November and called in the heads of the oil companies for a friendly little “heart to heart,” which was rudely interrupted when Barbara Boxer actually stood up and did her job by motioning that the executives be sworn in just like anyone else who has sat beside a congressional committee of one type or another. Pete Domenici called forth the fury of Chevron, Amoco, and Exxon-Mobil and put her back in her place.

(I mean…this isn’t just the imperial presidency, but the imperial government right? We can’t have anyone actually represent us…I mean, my God; what was Barbara Boxer thinking?).

Well, I got a crazy thought (getting to the point in a minute). In the past, sure, we’ve called out the head thieves and violators of the environment at the oil companies, but we’ve also called upon the Secretary of Energy to ask him or her “whaddayagonnadoaboutit?”

We all know that Dick Cheney is really in charge in that area, but I knew we had somebody taking up office space with that title acting as a front. The problem is that I couldn’t remember who it was.

Since inquiring minds need to know, I did some trusty Google searching, and it found out who it was. It turns out that it’s some guy named Samuel Bodman.

Who is this mook, you may well ask? Well, it turns out he was a big wheel at that gigando mutual fund company near Boston, Fidelity Investments, before he landed at Cabot Corporation, a specialty chemical maker in the same area. It’s not entirely clear how much he knows about energy, but he definitely knows Bushco, having “cut his teeth” in this administration under former Treasury Secretary Don Evans (see, Evans is, quite probably, Dubya's "best buddy").

This is why Cabot Corporation is noteworthy (from this story):

In October 2002, Bodman's former company came under fire when a United Nations Panel of Experts produced a report accusing the company, along with several other US corporations, of helping to fuel the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) while he ran Cabot by purchasing coltan from Congo during the conflict and illegally plundering the country's vast natural resources.

This explains what Coltan is and why it is important. As stated in the linked text, “When refined, coltan becomes a heat resistant powder, metallic tantalum which has unique properties for storing electrical charge. It is heavily used for printed circuit boards included in cellphones.”

Cabot has publicly denied the allegations in the UN report, but a report by the Belgian Senate states that Eagle Wings Resources International had a long-term contract to supply Cabot with coltan, which it too purchased from Congo during the war.

In response, environmental Friend of the Earth United States (FOE) and the UK-based human rights group Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) filed a complaint with the US State Department last August (2004) against Cabot and several other western corporations for its role in aiding the rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo by conducting business there, essentially inadvertently aiding a violent conflict that contributed to widespread human rights abuses.

What can be done about this?

There is very little the "man on the street" can do to prevent Coltan exploitation as it is not a "visible" component of cellphones that can be differentiated when shopping, but continuing pressure on circuit board manufacturers has lead to many demanding that their Coltan supplies only come from legitimate sources. Similar pressure on other users of Coltan can also help to ensure that only legitimately mined and sold Coltan is used in circuit boards.

I know there’s a lot to digest here, so I’ll try to summarize:

- We’re getting gouged on our heating costs (and nobody can blame Hurricanes Katrina and Rita for it any more, as well as using them as an excuse for bad economic news).
- When Democrats try to stand up for us by demanding accountability, they get hooted down.
- We have a phantom C.E.O. as the Secretary of Energy.
- He doesn’t have much experience in the business (I’m not sure how relevant “specialty chemicals” are…we could also be talking about peyote for all I know), but he does know how to be Dubya’s kind of guy.
- His former company sought a material used for PC board conduction of electricity by aiding a resistance in the Congo that ended up fueling existing wars and leading to widespread human rights abuses, and also ruining the environment in the process (according to a U.N. report).

To paraphrase Brendan…”Samuel W. Bodman – Working For You!” And as far as complaining about the price of gas goes…well, let’s just say that we’re all giving Hugo Chavez and his buddies a good laugh.

Update 1/27: Speaking of Chavez, it turns out that he's going to help the poor of Philadelphia by supplying discounted heating oil (registration required). How pathetic that the supposed richest country on earth has to rely on a South American socialist to provide for its neediest citizens because the capitalist cabal that is busy running us into the ground doesn't feel that there's enough of a profit in it for them.