Oil Things Must Pass

I went to the beach last weekend and stepped in a pile of asphalt that had been floating in Santa Monica Bay and had washed ashore after being dumped by a tanker at the oil refineries south of LAX. It made me mad. Oil companies get away with everything, including soiling my shoes.

Last week, the CEOs of the big five oil companies testified before Congress about why they needed their welfare checks while making record money from gambling. Because of Wall Street oil speculators, the price of a barrel of oil is driven up (in some estimates) $44 a barrel to about $100 a barrel.

Speculation has nothing to do with the hands on exploration and production of oil, nor does it have to do with supply and demand. Speculation should be made illegal or heavily regulated. Obama needs to rein in these speculators. He promised in June 2008 that he would do so. Do you think he will now?

Right. On to the next paragraph.

I believe big oil’s Gang of Five should pay for all wars fought in the Middle East. It is as obvious that Libya is not about human rights as it was that Iraq was not about WMD.

I also believe that in wars fought for oil by governments on behalf of oil corporations, the corporations should not only pay for the wars like a business expense, but they and their proxy governments should be liable for damages just like in business, but not like in oil spills. These are blood spills, so they would not be able to be passed on to the taxpayer, consumer and next generation American like BP is doing in the Gulf. Talk about your entitlements!

This means that killing innocent children in their profiteering wars would cost them monetarily in amounts much greater than the 1-2% taxpayer welfare they so hate to lose. One oil executive threatened to move their operation out of the US. I say “Go ahead! Leave! And don’t let your rig hit you in the ass on the way out!”

Necessity is the mother of invention and if America needs to invent a better way to do everything without oil and gas we will.

In fact, is it not a good idea to start a boycott of one of the big five to send a message and scare the hell out of the other four? Of course it is.

And hey, what about the sequel to Who Killed the Electric Car called Revenge of the Electric Car? Try to see it if you can. We need to change the world we live in. Maybe this is a way.

Obama sin laden

Yes, this title, a silly play on words, is intentional.

On Saturday afternoon I was angry at the news that three of Qaddafi’s grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed in a missile attack which also reportedly killed Qaddafi’s son. Then came disagreement in the some parts of the blogos-fear (clever, aren’t I?) whether he was or was not the evil, older son. A cursory view just now of some liberal websites to verify, clarify and research for this writing has become frustrating because the news of Osama’s killing is everywhere in a multitude of aspects and angles serving its purpose as collective conscious and unconscious distraction.

The death of these kids was the result of a NATO strike. But don’t we own NATO? Should we, the superior “Christian valued nation”, firstly, not go to war, and secondly, not kill children? Now here’s the infuriating question: for oil???!!!

The possibility/probability (your choice) that these kids (and many others around the world in many different wars and military and “police” actions we’ve fought) died for oil is on par with being godless…unless our god is oil and/or geopolitical control.

There are human rights abuses in many places around the world and there have been human rights abuses in Libya for a long time. Suddenly the US is involved? Suddenly NATO is passing resolutions and sending missiles?

Oil.

And each and every child killed in a war for oil (or Halliburton or the US Chamber of Commerce or Walmart), the loss of their lives are, each and every one, an unconscionable sin that Obama is quickly becoming laden with.

For oil.

The old adage is fight fire with fire. But sometimes that strategy cannot and should not apply. How can you fight human rights abuses with human rights abuses? And if a NATO missile killing children doesn’t violate these kids’ human rights I don’t know what does.

Oil.

Have I said it enough?

Oil?

Barack Hussein Oilbama.

What a silly word play.

Back on the Cheney Gang

Dick Cheney attacking Obama for not creating more war is an awfully unnecessary charade.

At least George Will had the clarity of vision to say yesterday on George Stephanopoulos that he wished Cheney and Bush had dithered more before invading Iraq where there were no weapons of mass destruction.

But it wasn’t about WMD or terrorist connections anyway, it was about destroying Iraq so KBR could profit from taxpayer paid military logistical support and Halliburton could profit from taxpayer paid contracts to rebuild the oil plants and infrastructure.

The angle of war profiteering seems never to surface in any mainstream media analysis of Cheney’s statements, or his motives for making those statements. His daughters are only surrogates in this tactic.

It seems to me all the Cheneys want is war, war, war and the multi-billion dollar profits that go with it, and they will stop at nothing to get it. Cheney’s war profiteering connection to Halliburton and its subsidiaries, including KBR, must be examined by the media daily, making Cheney answer to questions about his true motives.

According to the Cheney/Halliburton chronology that appears in Halliburton Watch, KBR was under investigation by the SEC for its accounting practices way back in 1998 while Cheney headed Halliburton. KBR paid $7.5 million in fines and was allowed to continue, promising it would no longer commit or cause future securities violations. How they were allowed to participate in Iraq in ways that killed soldiers and raped contractors must be due to Cheney.

A quick read through shows how Halliburton made money through contracts with Iran and Libya, which violated a US ban on trading with nations which sponsored state terrorism.

This should fall under Michelle Bachmann’s call on “Hardball” a year ago for an “in-depth exposé” of un-American members of Congress and other parts of the government. To send American men and women to their death just for billions in profit is criminal and un-American.

Fox does exposés on ACORN, but do they have the balls to expose Cheney and the war profiteering of Halliburton, KBR and other defense contractors in determining military policies?

For that matter would MSNBC be allowed to run with that story given that their owner, General Electric, is also a major defense contractor? Doubtful.

CNN? Ha! They confuse passivity with fairness.

Cheney doesn’t care about America. If he did, he would not have steered Iran Contra House Committee Chairman Lee Hamilton away from the drug aspect of that anti-American scandal from those patriotic posers, Reagan, North, Bush, Poindexter, et al.

I remember a couple of years ago when security for American ports was being outsourced to a company from the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Ports World, and Americans went ape shit until the government prevented that from happening and gave it secretly to another company based in the Middle East.

Perhaps if Americans fully realized how Halliburton and its subsidiaries were compromising US military lives through their corruption—nah, it would never work unless Americans felt the fear somehow that Halliburton, through greed, was allowing Middle Eastern countries and possibly terrorists compromising our security by exploiting and bribing Halliburton CEOs in the UAE.

Well…??

With Halliburton moving to the UAE to allegedly avoid answering to US government investigations, maybe someone needs to explain this to the American people in the context that Cheney wants war in Afghanistan so his dear Halliburton and their subsidiaries can profit secretly through a maze of back door connections.

Halliburton, KBR and the other subsidiaries have proven they have no morals or scruples or love of country, and Cheney, as their former CEO and Chairman, is doing as ex-vice president what he was doing as Chairman and CEO—manipulating America for war profits.

Maybe one day, because of Cheney and Halliburton, calling someone a capitalist will have the same insultative (new word) meaning as calling someone a socialist. What Halliburton does is not capitalism, its “crapitalism” or “corrupitalism”.

Okay, now I’m becoming too, too clever—or annoying. But not like Cheney.

Somebody get Spain on the phone. Tell them to hurry up and put Cheney on trial for war crimes before he starts another war in his New American world domination Century.