Brother, Can You Spare A Million?

Before you read this, let me warn you. I'm mad. It's not righteous, holy, or indignant. I am plainly and simply...... ticked off. You have no idea how much I want to use stronger langauge but I will at least restrain myself at that most basic level. But that's where my restraint ends.

Corporate quarterly earning reports are filtering out into the media landscape. History has been made, records have been shattered and tens of billions of dollars have been banked for the past quarter. (that's 3 months or 12 weeks or approximately 84 days). The oil company giants are overwhelmed at the jackpot. They have blitzed previous earning records for any company in any business. At last estimate I think I tabulated that the big 4 or 5 of these pigs have an extra 33,000,000,000 in their vaults. That's billion folks. Not million, 33 BILLION just in the last quarter. Exxon, Shell, BP, Texaco. Fat, happy and still charging us $2.25 at the pump. If somebody doesn't ask some serious questions in a large and public arena somewhere, I'm going to be mad all over again.

We've been told that the hurricanes are the cause, that the limited refineries are the cause, that the evil Arabs are the cause and our unlimited consumption is the cause. Enough of the lies. The cause is unmitigated, unbridled, unmasked, unimaginable GREED. And not just garden variety greed, but a greed that jumped on the backs of hurricane ravaged victims on the coast and in central America. A greed that saw a historic opportunity to mug and rape hapless customers.

But, before you dismiss me as some raging preacher looking for a soapbox, let me educate you. I just hung up the phone from yet another family in our area that is about to be evicted from their tiny home because they have been pouring more and more money into their gas tank to get to a minimum wage job. I am the president of ministerial association that sponsers a food shelf, emergency fuel assistance, rental assistance and other small efforts to bridge life and death gaps that welfare and low end jobs do not cover. During this last quarter I have been watching and listening to the escalation of calls for help in our little corner of the world. Our food shelf is under seige. Thank God we have good resources and wonderful volunteers, but, our little assistance checkbook is almost completely drained.

And yes, I DID just hang up the phone from a weeping lady offering to do any kind of community service she can just to get an extra $100 for rent, today. Last week I pulled off a miracle (because of time and procedures) to get $10 of gas to a lady needing to get to the hospital for a potentially life saving treatment. The week before that I was called by a man who was in obvious emotional pain because he was embarrassed to ask for $10 of gas to get to work. When I also sent him to our food shelf, he was beside himself with gratitude.

I have answered calls like this for the better part of 30 years. I can smell fraud. Faking your need does not generally work with me. The people I am talking to lately are, for the most part, very painfully real. But while I am on the subject of smelling the stink of fraud, let me tell you that the stench of fraud is at at the gas pumps. These oil company CEO's are faking their need and as of right now, I have had it! Beginning today, I am going to find a way to contact these god-fathers and their underworld partners in crime and ask for a spare million for the ministerial account I represent. The people they have stolen from are in real pain and I need just ONE million of their last quarter ill-gotten billions to assist these weeping souls who are calling me. No administrative costs will come out of that, no office overhead....a straight million back into bellies and pockets of the people who have just been robbed over the last several weeks.

"Hey brother Exxon, brother Shell, brother Texaco and brother BP! Can you spare a million? I know life is real hard on you right now....all that money counting and searing of your conscience and all. But if you could spare a paltry million, maybe you could help stop the bleeding in a few genuinely needy families out here in fly over country. If it helps you make up your depraved mind, please know that a great deal of that million will go to $10 gas vouchers for people trying to make to their poverty level jobs and doctor appointments."

Did I mention that I'm mad?