Another Blast to Oil-Drilling Myth: Taxpayer-subsidized Big Oil's Gulf Oil Won't Go to US

Meanwhile, back at the oil-drilling issue, did anybody realize this?

The oil that comes from offshore drilling will belong to the multinational firm, like Exxon-Mobil and will go to world markets, not us.

One thing has been driving me crazy about this drilling debate -- everyone seems to assume that if we drill for oil in the US, that we will get the oil. And hence, we won't be dependent on foreign oil anymore. But we won't get anything, Exxon-Mobil will.

The oil that comes from that drilling will not be United States property (Republicans aren't suggesting we nationalize the oil companies, are they?). It will be the property of whichever oil company got the rights to that contract. They can then sell it to whoever they like -- and they will. They will sell it on the world market, so the Chinese will have just as much access to the oil that comes out of the coast of Florida as we will.

The Democrats have done a decent job of beating back the argument that this will effect prices in the short run, or even in the long run. But no one has addressed the point above. The Republicans make it seem like we won't be dependent on foreign oil -- and that prices will go down in the US -- if we have our own oil. But it won't be ours. And it will be sold on the world market, so its effect on global oil prices will be even smaller.

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Iran Internet Cut Off: Is It War Against Iran Oil Bourse?

Buzzing all over the net: 5 internet cables in the Middle East cut off, some only a few kilometers apart, interrupting internet connectivity to Egypt, India, Qatar, and mostly, yes, most completely, to Iran... although all this is in the fact-meets-speculation stage. One of many synopses:

A ship's anchor severed one undersea Internet cable damaged last week, it
was revealed on Thursday amid ongoing outages in the Middle East and South Asia,
but mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts.
There has been speculation that five cables being cut in almost as many days was too much of a coincidence and that sabotage must have been involved.

It's too early to really assess the situation, but the timing is definitely significant. Namely, Iran's announcement that it will not trade its oil in U.S. Dollars. The impact of such a move, especially if it's emulated by others, which is a real possibility, could bring disaster, as eloquently explained by Len Hart of Existentialist Cowboy:

Certainly, when oil is no longer traded in dollars, it is not only the
dollar that will collapse. It means that the US --on the bad end of a huge
balance of trade deficit --will no longer be able to afford to import goods or
services. For a nation that long ago (Reagan years primarily; See Vidal, cited)
gave up its role as a manufacturing nation, this collapse will be monumental,
catastrophic. The fact that oil had been traded in dollars was the only thing
propping up the dollar.

This, in turn, could lead to our overextended debtor nation still called America to an economic tragedy on an unprecedented scale. So cutting off the internet, in comparison, looks sort of like a desperate prelude to war. War on Iran's threat - its economic threat to our empire.

Monitoring the news today --it is clear that the Middle East cables were
deliberately sabotaged and the effect has been to cut Iran off the internet.
Isolating a nation by cutting off its systems of communication is a first step
preceding a military attack. Bush no longer cares about even the pretense of
pre-text! His charge that Iran has weaponized grade fuels is universally and
credibly debunked. The real threat is to the poohbahs of US empire --the
Military/Industrial complex.

The spectre of impending doom, however, will not just trickle down. It may just avalanche down.

That there was a demand for dollars because there was a demand for oil
meant that you could continue to buy imported goods with dollars. Now --imagine
a world in which no other country need "purchase" dollars in order to import
oil! What if oil producing nations agree to accept other currencies? What if
they refuse to accept dollars? Go to Wal-Mart or even your local supermarket.
Almost everything on the shelves is imported.

How are we going to afford our lifestyles if we have to import things we can't pay for? Will the dollar ultimately become worthless? And another issue: what will all the victims of our senseless wars fighting "monsters" like the bin Laden "Antichrist", all those millions of refugees, all those families robbed of their homes, what will they do to, or about, us - or shall I say, US?

With this hanging, unspoken, like a looming cloud overhead, an unknown possibility, and with all our money hanging on the petroleum trade, is there any question now why we are in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, fawning over Saudi Arabia while blindfolding everyone we can, in order to shore up an empire that collapsed decades ago by invading every oil-rich piece of earth we can manage to invade? Yet that only makes things much worse.

It's Republican mismanagement and squander on wars that devalued the dollar, and now when oil-producers don't want to trade in dollars they become Enemy Number One. It's sabotage time... But to the deluded Petrocorporate War machine, they're Hans Brinker putting his finger in the dam. Let's expose them before it's too late: it isn't even their dam.

Victory for Bush in Iraq! Here it is! But in "fine print"...

Bridgethought of the Day: The greatest triumphs of tyrants will ultimately be seen only as tyranny. (Even if that 'ultimately' is no more, or less, than Judgment Day.) How about this great lie? "We want the Iraqis to share their oil wealth - that is the most important thing." We say "share with each other". We mean "lion's share for us." And "us" means simply the U.S. & Big Oil. For Bush, it's a win-win. For the Iraqis, it's a lose-lose. Check this article out.

There's a little "appropriations package" attached to a bill touted as "fairness" for Iraqis, and giving them their own oil to share equitably with each other. It's all part of the spin that we are the Heroic Crusader fighting for the rights of the people to give them democracy and save them from the oppressive tyrant dictator, and save the world from Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Eliminate Terrorism, which is the Scourge of the Earth. But we, the Hero, are not gutting their resources, fomenting violent civil war, creating pockets of real terrorism and brutality where none of that ilk existed, and fueling anti-American sentiment worldwide, and making life itself in Iraq virtually impossible. We are not increasing instability and extremism in the Middle East by misguided and ill-conceived plans. This is all merely a side effect of our real goal: victory.

Congratulations! We've won the war! We're getting the oil! Isn't that all that really matters? After all, without oil, we will lose our way of life, and Exxon will lose its bottom line. Can you imagine anything worse? Bush can't. And if Bush can't, and he is the "leader of the planet", who can???

Oh, yeah, those wicked liberals can. That's why they're wicked and evil. Because they dare to stop the spin and look at what's been swept under the rug - like those rusty consciences that Barry Goldwater used to talk about. That went out when Rove began to swear on stacks of Machiavellis. Bibles? That's just a front. The real Book is called "The Prince." Read it and weep.

But even the liberals know how to play ball. This little tidbit is written into a bill they, too, espouse. Tacked on to the "bring the troops home earlier" bill, is just what Dr. Rove ordered - victory for Big Oil, and the Bush family staple.

They called it "Revenue Sharing." A must-have clause -'cause it's The Clause.

"Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially
trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.

If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil,
Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.

The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That’s the land mine: he will certify the American and British oil
companies have access to Iraqi oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr. Bush has sought for the better part of six years.

It is why we went to war."

Does it really help that someone else agrees with me? Not unless that person is President, has a mandate, an Administration, and the guts to implement an ethical agenda instead of these insidious empire-building strategies. Is there a chance? Are you with me, Mr. Obama? Ms. Clinton? Mr. Edwards? Who is ready to stop cowboying abroad and start getting our act together at home? Where did all those billions get us? Seems we're going to keep We The People on voice mail for a long time ... while we're "out of town."

From Green to Gitmo

It seems one of the top watchwords of the world today is "global warming". Like Al Gore or not, he seems to have made an impression. There are still lots of conservatives who think that the environmental movement is still a form of overkill. But there are even more businesspeople who see it as a wave of opportunity. They see money to be made in dealing practically with the global warming issue. So why not join forces? The environment is no longer a separate issue. It's a uniting platform for left and right in the interest of human survival. It's a global issue. It should be above and beyond "politics" yet at the same time use politics for the advancement of human survival.

Then, on the other hand, we have Guantanamo Bay and the atrocities of the Bush Anti-Terror Debaucle. Although some advances may have been had against terrorism, on the whole the war on terror is a debaucle. It has in many ways served to galvanize the concept of terrorism on both sides, as heroic freedom-fighters against an evil juggernaut called "The West" on one side, and as evil destroyers of peace, freedom and the American Way on the other. The latter having been cartoonized as medieval sci-fi sword-weilding survivalist goons, something out of an epic video game on Planet X - Codename Afghanistan. The real issues are never addressed. Poverty. Oppression. Dictatorships. Economic development - or lack thereof. These issues should really be treated as survival issues. We no longer contain the problems of poor people between two solid distant mountains. By exploding bombs in their hideouts we are driving them into our homes. Suddenly we became a part of their lives. And suddenly their world has become Guantanamo - the ultimate Torture Chamber of the so-called modern world. And it will be its downfall.Just wait and see.

Remember Global warming. That is not a threat to the neocons. It's only a threat to human beings.
Gitmo is not a threat either to them. It's a road to success. But it's also man's inhumanity to man. That threatens the survival of human beings - as "humanity".
So is oppression of the poor for the sake of the rich. But not for the sake of human beings.
The War in Iraq is for Big Oil to make money on the backs of the Iraqis.
No more, no less. It was not a war for human beings, as they like to spin it. It was and is a war for capitalist conquest.
Capitalist conquest is not the opposite of socialist/communist rule. There is democracy and free enterprise without capitalist conquest. But they set up this dichotomy to make people think there would be totalitarianism if we were not taking advantage of the weak/poor by the strong/rich/powerful. This is absurd.
The war on terror is ostensibly to save humanity. But in reality it is to empower the powerful yet further. There are greater threats to humanity than terrorism. Why aren't dictators and despots called terrorists? Because they don't threaten the agenda of the powerful. They support it. That's why the American foreign policy betrays America's founding fathers. They are becoming the "dictatress of the world."

Winning the War in Iraq: Not only Doable, It's Done!

A vote is before the Iraqi Parliament, such as it stands, or ducks, as the case may be. Between the bullets whizzing past legislator(s), and the hand grenades and passing suicide bombers that lawmakers have to deal with, another volley is stealthily pulled right under their noses: the Oil Law! It gives 70% of oil revenues not to the Iraqi People as the administration promised us, but to, you guessed it, Dick & Georgie's cause celebre, Big Oil Conglomerates! Once passed, and the dedicated al-Maliki has assured us that he will do everything in his power - within his specified 3/4 acre - to see that it passes - then "we", represented by Big Oil Conglomerates, posing as flag-draped "U.S. Interests", will have won! So every death, every disfiguration, every maimed young man and woman in the prime of their lives, every orphaned child, will have been worth it!

So already sinfully-rich and bloated Monoliths like Big Oil can rake in the black gold for their personal gain, and the people in Iraq can go back to the business of being hungry, having no infrastructure, having all their national treasures and antiquities destroyed and razed and burned, having no services, electricity, or potable water, and watching their children being blown apart in the education and commerce-free streets run by armed gunmen killing each other for centuries-old grudges that serve no purpose but self-destruction and the elimination of decent people. In other words, it's a victory for greed, a defeat for human beings. And we can use it all to run our cars and our economy. USA! USA! USA! But what would old Tom Jefferson say? Who the hell cares - we live for today!

And how could they convince Mr. al-Maliki to sign away his nation's resources like that? Simple:

Dear Mr. Al-Maliki:

We, the Superpower Oil Conglomerates, might actually deign to pursue the thought of actually investing in your lowlife, devastated, terror-ridden Economy, even though such Conglomerates are actually hardly interested in your lucrative worldclass oil fields, as we are actually extremely Busy doing Much More Important Things and driving Ferraris instead of armored vehicles, but well, if you agree to give us the mere pittance of 70% of your revenues so you can starve your people in a world class show of sincerity to the Masters of the Universe, then we, in a moment of rare largesse, may invest in your pariah economy, and even in those oilfields, and at the same time, maybe, just maybe, we will change our minds about blowing every last bit of infrastructure into a billion pieces.

Of course, if you ever get the idea that we actually NEED and WANT DESPERATELY to use those oilfields, we will use all the power at our disposal - care for a taste? oh, you already had some, did you? - to show you that we want it, but on OUR TERMS. And don't you DARE think to offer a stake to anyone else in this Universe, other than the Masters. You know who I mean. Bro.