How many times do you need to be screwed before you realize it's rape?

London Yank has laid out a very strong case today and in other diaries arguing the manipulation of gas prices in the run-up to the election, and yet there are many who refuse to believe such a 'conspiracy' could be possible without some sort of direct evidence.  The same goes for many of the arguments talking about possible election fraud.

Now I don't claim to have all the answers, but my memory still works pretty well, so if you'll indulge me, let's take a trip back to the year 2001.

In that year, I lived in Seattle, Washington.  In fact I lived there for 10 years altogether, beginning in 1992.  At some point in 2001, my electric bill started to get a lot more expensive all of a sudden.  Meanwhile, local TV stations and newspapers kept talking about what a horrible drought the region was undergoing.  Here's a link: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/...

This story played for quite a while in the Northwest and we were led to believe that the drought would cause electric prices to rise since the area was dependant on hydroelectric power for a good portion of its electricity.
There was only one problem I saw in the conventional wisdom-when I looked out my own goddamned window, I saw green grass, green trees, and rivers and streams with plenty of water left in them.  If you read the link above, you'll notice that the drought was supposedly the worst in western Washington, with a foot less rain than normal.  You know what most Seattle residents call a year with a foot less rainfall than normal?  They call it fucking great!!!  Don't get me wrong, if this pattern happened several years in a row it would be a problem, but the Pacific NW is very lush and very wet, and a few low rain months are nothing to panic about.

Meanwhile in California, there were rolling blackouts all over the place during the same time period.  There were many explanations offered up at the time for why this was happening which I won't bore you with, because by now we all know how this played out.  The high prices and blackouts were not due to drought, or an aging infrastructure, or incompetent management.  They were caused by Enron.  The same Enron which was being touted by stock anylasts as the business model of the future for their sheer genius in the energy industry.  In fact they were criminals who colluded with government to get the deregulation they needed to game the energy market.  And they stole $$$ from me, and millions of people all along the West Coast, as well as their employees and stockholders until it all came crashing down.  

We should not be overly credulous. But I for one don't think we need a videotape of George Bush performing fellatio on a Saudi prince before we should believe that oil executives elected to the White House who held secret energy meetings shortly after taking office and then did not require those same energy executives to testify under oath when brought before Congress, maybe just might use their positions of power just a teensy bit to influence a political outcome in their favor.  Don't be afraid to trust your instincts when all of the circumstantial evidence points to one conclusion. We have been screwed over and over and over again over the last few years and yet people still think republicans won't use any means necessary to line their pockets and stay in power. They will and they are.  

They tried to tell us electric rate hikes were due to a drought a few years ago, but it doesn't take a weatherman to see which way the wind blows.