Now that gas is now headed for $3/gallon on its way to $4/gallon, I offer you this extensive piece I wrote last summer outlining the "gaming of America" by the oil interests. Take a look at it, and then ask yourself why America isn't mobilizing all out for energy independence. The technology is there for us to cut our gasoline consumption in half within 90 days. Then there's less debt to the Saudis, less risk from OPEC manipulations, less disruption from refinery shut-downs, less need to drill, and fewer spills in the ocean or near shorelines. So why aren't we mobilizing?
We know why the government isn't mobilizing. Bush is in the pocket of the oil industry. What I can't figure out is why the Democratic party hasn't taken the initiative on this, since cutting our oil dependence would result in a lot of money that would go to the Dems rather than the Repubs.
Besides the above rationales, finding alternative fuels for our vehicles is patriotic, it's in our own selfish as well as larger interest, would give us leverage, and not leave us sitting ducks for whoever wants to disrupt oil supplies. You would think the voters of America would get hip to their own interests. Even Willie Nelson has a tour bus run on vegetable oil, and there are other alternatives readily available. You would think Democratic party politicians would see a no-brainer when it's in their face. Are there any strategists left in the party? If so, will they please come forth before we lose our republic altogether?
This fleecing of Americans began here in California, when we started getting jacked by a game we can't seem to break. It involves a systemic looting of the people, taking massive amounts of money out of our pockets and putting that money directly into the
corporate pockets of those who keep the
Neocons awash in money.
Remember the
energy crisis game which transferred literally BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer money into the pockets of (mostly) Texas energy companies like Enron through
proven market manipulation? The
energy companies that outrageously bilked us turned around and put that money into the political campaigns of those who made sure the game was enforced. Funny also how the Bush Fedmachine refused to intervene in the very market it helped create when Grey refused to turn over the ownership of the power lines, which just happen to be owned by us Californians. The game was busted, but we were still held responsible for outrageously rigged contracts to those same energy companies that are still donating primarily Republican. Hmmm. Sounds like the sound of one hand washing the other.
Well, it's happening again, but this time it's enforced on the entire country rather than just California. It used to be that only certain areas had gasoline approaching $2 a gallon. Thus only a few areas contributed more to the Republican oil money machine than the rest of us. But now, no more! We're all paying between $2 and $3 a gallon, and told future hikes will probably leave any notion of a return to sanity in the rearview mirror. So now we're all getting to contribute perpetually to the Republican re-election machine.
It's funny how the
oil companies keep getting busted for price fixing and there's never any permanent way to keep them from looting the public from time to time. Remember there are many ways to pick a pocket. Take the news of the threatened
closure of a refinery here in California. Funny how Shell Oil found running a refinery unprofitable during a time when we are told we cannot get enough oil refined to bring the price down. I suppose the notion of government oversight of the refineries in this "time of war" to ensure the stability of the oil supply would be unacceptable if it weren't already happening through the looking glass.
It's very interesting that Bush kept buying oil for the
Strategic Reserve, thus driving prices even higher by increasing demand. So there were threatened refinery closures even as we needed more oil refined by the demand pressured by Bush's insistence on buying more oil from his
Republican buddies, who coincidentally are his biggest contributors. Hmmmm. Still sounds like the sound of one hand washing the other.
You'll notice that regardless of the ever-rising price of oil and its future scarcity, there is no talk of seriously funding any alternative energy plans to ensure our long-term security. We're getting our collective clocks cleaned by
Europe and
Asia here, for no other reason that it is in the interests of those who are taking contributions from the oil and energy industries to maintain the supremacy of those systems.
Passively, all but a few players in the power game stall and say there's no "hard evidence" that other systems will work, save money, etc., while
sandbagging any real progress in establishing alternative power systems. Bush's political model, RR himself, gutted progressive policy regarding
solar energy, even ripping the panels off the White House in a grand gesture to his predecessor, Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter.
It is pretty crazy to grant tax breaks and incentives for archaic and filthy systems of generating power. Oil is obsolete! Power, whether generated by oil, coal, or gas, is insanely expensive, given how cheap power actually could become. Personally, I vote for more money in your pocket and mine rather than just give more breaks to energy companies. And then they want even more breaks if they're held responsible for cleaning up the waste, or they just pass it on to the consumers in a hike. Oh yeah. then there's the part where various industries insist there are no connections between their waste byproducts and the
public health. Funny where their political contributions go as well.
The punch line to all this is that California used to have a lot of money, much of it going to the Democrats. Now, due to the gaming of the state (and the nation) by the power and oil companies, that giant sucking sound you hear every time you fill your gas tank goes straight into the Republican party. The Repubs are doing to the entire country what Reagan did to the Soviets: create a game so expensive no one else can compete. Welcome to the Neocon playbook.
