Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin. This is the audio version of each episode of the Empire Files hosted on Telesaur English. You can watch every episode at the Empirefiles.tv.

In a system that puts profits over everything, small gangs of billionaires are given free reign to plunder the planet. One of the

richest power clicks in the empire's inner circle is also imperiling all life on Earth at an

alarming rate, only to pad their vaults with cash. In the United States, the oil industry is a giant

cash-engorged beast, with the loyal servitude of the state at its beck and call.

Its vast accumulation of wealth has led to its vast accumulation of power and influence in today's

society. A resource that's the pivot of the modern industrial economy has made every

oil-rich nation a prize to be won by every aspiring world empire.

In the past half century, the U.S. has sacrificed untold lives, limbs, and resources,

and it scrambled to seize larger and larger pieces of the market,

from funding dictators to fueling proxy battles to all-out wars of aggression.

Entire countries like Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, and others have been established

as oil monarchies, owned by American oil corporations, armed the teeth by imperial sponsors.

Every president from Truman-on officially dubbed access to oil a matter of national security,

meaning worth going to war for. The oil industry's vast power was pioneered by the son of a snake

oil salesman, John D. Rockefeller, a cutthroat capitalist who bought his first refinery in Cleveland

in 1865, later named the Standard Oil Company.

Many emerging oil companies were competing, but Rockefeller's Standard Oil tipped the scales.

They used an illegal deal with railroad companies for cheaper transportation

to bully more than 20 refineries into selling themselves to standard oil under threat of having

to compete with impossibly low oil prices. Other strong-armed tactics were used to buy up the industry.

For example, if a refinery didn't want to sell itself, Rockefeller would buy the pipeline

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