BP’s origins go back to before the First World War, when Great Britain’s Empire was still in place. Without the Empire it is doubtful that such a corporation could have gained the foothold, some might say stranglehold, it has on the oil industry today.

According to Wikipedia, BP has oil fields in the following places: Great Britain, the U.S., Norway, Trinidad and Tobago, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Vietnam, Angola, Colombia, Australasia, and Russia.

And, of course, also in the Gulf of Mexico.

The saying goes that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. BP looks like an empire and sounds like one, because it is one.
It makes more money and has more holdings around the world than most countries.

Maybe Great Britain divested itself of a colonial empire, but its business and corporate interests did not.

“Rule, Brittania” was an 18th century British patriotic song and one that accompanied Great Britain, as it conquered and controlled a sizable chunk of the world.

Maybe the song is no longer sung by the British Army, but BP seems to being whistling the same tune.

The first two stanzas are:

When Britain first, at Heaven's command

Arose from out the azure main;

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sang this strain:

Rule, Britannia! Rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

The nations, not so blest as thee,

Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;

While thou shalt flourish great and free,

The dread and envy of them all.

Rule, Britannia! Rule the waves:

Britons never will be slaves.

Yours truly,

Dr. Don Heinrich Tolzmann, Cincinnati

P.S. For information on the author’s latest book, German-Americana: Selected Essays, please click HERE