Next to pointless.
- The worst offenders -- poster children for this kind of corruption -- will make a straight-faced photo op out of "taking the pledge," then continue to offend as if nothing had happened! How many genuinely bad boys (e.g., DeLay, the Enron execs) have professed complete innocence even as they were being cuffed?
- Any middling offenders who retain a shred of conscience simply won't take the pledge. Instead, they'll attack its proponents as wrongheaded (as in "cut and run") and provide spin cover for each other.
- Minor offenders aren't the problem.
Something folks at the grassroots can do that is guaranteed to shake up the oil lobby is dramatically reduce consumption.
Big Oil can throw money at Congress all they want, but as their profits dry up, so does their power to buy influence. What they are selling is a commodity -- and they have stockholders to please, too.
Do the math.
P.S. Do I think Americans will do this? I'm not betting on it -- yet. But history has shown that there is a point beyond which Americans cannot be pushed.
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