The American Spectator

Political Hay

Teachers' Pet: Big Oil

By Jeffrey Lord on 6.17.08 @ 12:08AM

(Page 2 of 2)

So Mr. Feckner's union, a huge shareholder in Big Oil, opted to keep the oil spigot gushing for its union members in spite of the fact that this was enriching the Communist government of China and grinding the already terrified targets of the genocide in Sudan. Does liberal Sudan activist actor George Clooney know about this? If so, does he approve? Meanwhile, in Washington, California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat and ally of Mr. Feckner's union, took to the Senate floor to play the offended Senator, knowing full well the unwary in this election year could respond with votes to anybody appearing to save them from the high prices at the pump. She excoriated Big Oil, saying that when it comes to their huge profit Big Oil should "give it back to us." Perhaps she should just call Mr. Feckner.

ILLINOIS: Over in Illinois is teacher Cinda Klickna, a contributor to the National Education Association's Fund for Children and Public Education, a PAC listed as an Obama contributor. Klickna sits as a member of the board of the Illinois Teachers Retirement System (TRS) in Senator Obama's home state. You may have heard of TRS if the name Tony Rezko rings a bell, Rezko is the Obama friend recently convicted for, in the words of the New York Times, "a plan to steer teachers' pension investments to firms that would provide kickbacks."

While mail fraud, as Rezko has now learned, is illegal, political fraud is not only quite legal but commonplace when it comes to Democrats and Big Oil in Illinois. Specifically, according to a February 25, 2008 story in the Dow Jones Financial News Online, the Illinois TRS, the board of which counts teacher Klickna as a member, "has invested $600 million in commodities including oil and gas, making it the second multi-million-dollar commitment by a US public pension plan to such energy assets within a week."

The Illinois branch of the NEA prominently displays on its website the news of the national NEA's endorsement of favorite son and Illinois teachers ally Obama. Unlike the Calpers stance with Berkshire Hathaway and Sudan, the TRS has divested itself -- because it has been instructed to do so by state law -- from any oil company doing business in either Sudan or Iran. But as for oil companies doing business outside of those two countries? No problem for the teachers who love TRS. Hey, it's only $600 million dollars.

WHICH BRINGS US To the next logical question here: divestment.

Divestment is one of those moral certainties liberals employ when they want to call attention to what they deem bad behavior, as those in Illinois saw over in the Sudan and Iran. It is such a favorite tool of the left that this now becomes the place to ask: When will the Democrats and their political allies divest themselves from...Big Oil? Just....get out? These are companies that are regularly assailed for "greed" or "obscene profits" by any liberal findable by Google. So isn't now the time for Democrats and their teacher and public employee union allies to forget the oil profits they have been quietly amassing and get out of the oil business entirely? Instruct the teachers and public employee representatives on the boards of pension funds in places like Wisconsin, California and Illinois to just get their members pensions out of the oil business -- period? To go look their members in the eye and tell them that they agree with Speaker Pelosi, Senator Obama and Senator Hillary "I want those profits" Clinton? To tell their members the checks they receive are the rotten fruit of ill-gotten gains? To tell them that no retired teacher or any other state or public employee should have to carry the burden of knowing that their retirement security comes not from their years of service but because their leaders have greedily turned them into the lackeys of Big Oil?

Better yet, what about the unions sitting on the boards of funds like Calpers following Senator Boxer's advice? How about turning over the profits these union pension fund managers have gleaned from all those profiteering oil companies and just set up a gas fund for the rest of us -- giving those of us not vested in a teachers "Big Oil" pension fund the relief at the pump that we all deserve? The idea is so...well...Jimmy Carteresque. Or perhaps I should now say Obamaesque. Morally superior. Presuming fairness. Taking the profits from the rich oil companies to give to the poor. Think of the great slogans for the anti-oil pension fund marches. Don't Teach for Oil or Stop Rigging Teachers Retirement or No Oil for Pensions. Maybe we will even see Democrats like Senator Obama starting to refuse support from teachers unions on principle. After all, he doesn't take support from Big Oil, right?

You have to admit this is a diabolically clever win-win strategy. You might even call it a teachable moment: liberals attack Big Oil to get votes while in fact their union pals are quietly raking in hundreds of millions from owning it, getting all the political power that comes along in the bargain. If they ever get the chance to do the Obama-Jimmy Carter windfall profits tax, the oil companies will simply pass the cost on to you and me, making us all contribute even more millions to teacher pensions every time we fill up.

Perhaps the great comic strip character Pogo provides the best slogan of all for the liberals who are now revealed as the real power behind Big Oil, the real evil geniuses making us all choose between food or gas.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Jeffrey Lord is the creator, co-founder and CEO of QubeTV, an online conservative video site. A Reagan White House political director and author, he writes from Pennsylvania.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Education, Trade, Nancy Pelosi, Economics, Business, Law, Iran, NATO, Energy, Oil, Unions