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#2252 - Tuesday, September 6, 2005 - Editor: Jerry Katz
this issue features walker, a guy who's appeared here before. he has that natural nondual voice thing happening. here he comments on George Bush and drilling in Alaska. it was posted prior to the Hurricane. walker appears irregularly at VanDwellers: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/VanDwellers . there are other good writers there as well. --jerry
somebody or other wrote:
> Add me! Bill , I'd vote Bush again and again. Thank you!!!!
when i read a seemingly inexplicable statement like this, one
phrase
comes to mind by way of explanation:
"good Germans."
we are told, just as Germans were during their gathering
holocaust,
that to oppose the great leader is treasonous (see Ann Coulter,
Charles Krauthammer, Sean Hannity, Bill O'reilly, Rush Limbaugh,
ad
nauseum).
of the many adjectives i'd use to describe Bush and his cohorts -
incompetent, hypocritical, devious, secretive, mean-spirited,
self-righteous, greedy, megalomaniacal, criminal, hateful,
dangerous,
scheming, ignorant, unctuous, - i'd just summarize with the one
Bush
himself likes to use in referring to others: evil.
in my life i've never been so worried for the country i love so
much
than i am now that we are in the clutches of this evil cabal of
neocons.
after 9-11 the world was on our side; it was a tremendous
opportunity
for the US to set an example to the world of our great heart, to
assert our leadership by uniting the world in common cause to
wipe out
poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and yes,
terrorism. we
were largely supported by the world community in our actions in
Afghanistan, where we said the terrorists who attacked us were
headquartered. instead, we let Bin Laden go and attacked a
country
that was no threat to us and which we had completely under
control
already with no-fly zones north and south. now most of the
world
hates us.
if you have read the Project for a New American Century document,
created secretly in the early 90s, you'll understand why we did
that.
it was written by the likes of Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney and
Libby,
the neocon cabal now in power and pulling the strings of Bush
junior.
it describes a scenario in which we suffer a major
terrorist attack,
then use that event to invade oil-rich countries in the middle
east
and gradually impose an imperialist regime on the whole world
while
curtailing civil liberties at home.
i resist conspiracy theories, but this stuff is in plain
sight. i
still won't go all the way and assert that 9-11 was engineered by
these corporate globalist neocons, but i can't say for sure that
it
wasn't, either. i've always loved my country and my
constitution, and
i just hate having to consider that my government has become as
evil
as such a conspiracy implies.
the patriotic values i hold dear do not include attacking,
bombing and
occupying countries that have not attacked us. this is why
so many in
the world hate us instead of looking to us for leadership and
defense
of human rights. instead of encouraging the totalitarian
regimes of
the world to reform and care for their citizens, the brutal,
greed-driven actions of the Bush administration has created
millions
of NEW terrorists and America-haters.
we are being governed by filthy rich oilmen and war-profiteers
who
care nothing about human rights, family values or morality.
they are
as far from the tenets of Jesus Christ as they can be, yet have
convinced the "good Germans" of America that they are
"people of
faith." what hogwash.
the only vote i'd ever give Bush is a vote for impeachment, trial
and
imprisonment.
walker
Bob Wells writes:
Having lived in Alaska for the last 40 years, I have to comment.
I remember really well when the enviromentalist made all the same
arguments against drilling in Prudoe Bay. The prophecy of
thousands of dead Caribou and the North Slope environment would
be destroyed and awash in oil. None of it was true, the Caribou
have thrived (they love the pipeline) and there has been no
damage to the North Slope, which is in the same place as ANWR. Of
course you have to give credit to the environmentalist for
forcing the oil companies to do it right. The oil from Prudoe bay
is one reason the price of oil has stayed down, and now that it
is running out it will keep going up.
There is no case against drilling on the Slope. We know for a
fact it can be done safely, and the North Slope is not a place of
beauty that draws tourists. The Brooks range south of it is, I
spent 6 weeks hiking in it and it is an amazing but very hard
country. But the North Slope is a flat, treeless, swamp full of
mosquitoes (you can't imagine how bad they are until you have
been there!) with absolutley no appeal.
The real reason the environmentalist don't want us to drill is so
that the price of gas will go up and we will be forced to stop
driving our cars. Why are gas prices so high? Because there
hasn't been a refinery built in this country for over 35 years.
You could pour in oil from outer space but there won't be an
extra drop of gas available because there are no more refineries
to refine it. The demand for gas has gone up so why aren't there
more refineries? Because the enviromentalists won't let them!
Why? So the price of gas will go up. Why? So we will be forced to
give up our cars.
On the other hand, maybe they are right, maybe the price of gas
should be $6 dollars a gallon so we will be forced to make the
hard decisions we have been avoiding. But if so, we are in for a
pretty nasty ride.
However I think it is important that we understand that the cause
of all the pain that is coming is the enviromentalists, not the
oil companies. It is not to the oil companies advantage to price
gas out of reach of the average person. It is not to their
advantage if we stop driving our cars because we can no longer
afford it. If I park my car and ride the bus or ride my bike or
walk, they loose all those sales. They could charge $600 a
gallon, but if I don't burn gas, they don't make a penny. They
don't want that. They want gas to be high enough that they make a
big profit, but not so high that I limit my driving. Only one
group of people is delighted to see $6 gas. The eviromentalists.
At least that's how I see it. Of course, maybe I'm all wrong, it
wouldn't be the first time. We shall see.
Bob
walker responds:
Bob, i respect your experiences in Alaska (and envy
you your six weeks hiking in the Brooks Range!) but i
don't think you have all the facts regarding
environmentalism vs. Big Oil.
it's a very complex subject, the economics of oil, and
i don't pretend to understand it well either, but the
first thing to remember is that it's a global
commodity. drilling or not drilling in ANWR will
have very little or no effect on the world market. a
hurricane in the Gulf, a coup in Venezuela, war in the
middle east or a collapsed platform in the North Sea
would all have greater effects on spot prices.
Bob:
>>The real reason the environmentalist don't want us
to drill is so that the price of gas will go up and we
will be forced to stop driving our cars.
no, the real reason is that it would damage a pristine
wilderness. what part of "wildlife refuge" don't
you
understand? one of the big lies they like to tell is
that it would "only impact 2000 acres" in an area
encompassing millions of acres. what they don't say
is that the 2000 acres is spread out over the whole
region, connected by roads, pipelines and heavy
equipment scattered throughout. it's not a little
square footprint of land but a widely distributed
disturbance of habitat and sensitive tundra, which
takes decades or even centuries to recover from
roadbuilding.
environmentalists don't want to pay for high-priced
gasoline any more than you do. they reason that the
entire amount of oil to be ripped from ANWR, which is
not much by world standards, could be gotten more
easily and cheaply (and wouldn't take the ten years or
more that ANWR would) by the simple step of mandating
better gas mileage from automakers. no one disputes
that cars can be more efficient, in fact the average
has gone down, not up in the last ten years. but oil
industry lobbyists convinced Congress and the
corporate-friendly Bush administration not to enforce
higher CAFE standards. why?
and why do you attack environmentalists and give a
pass to the big oil interests? not only are they
making unheard of record profits right now, the Bush
administration is giving them billions in SUBSIDIES
and tax breaks.
i think you're wrong on the refinery issue too. it's
not mainly environmentalists who stop them, but the
oil companies themselves, because plentiful gas would
relieve demand pressures and lower prices. i've heard
it both ways on this, so i don't know, but i don't
think you do either.
i won't try and convince you of the value of
wilderness, since you seem to be of the school that
thinks only humans matter in this world, ignoring the
interconnectedness of every living thing. i don't get
why right-wingers want more and more people and fewer
and fewer wild animals in the world. there's already
over six billion of us and only a few thousands of
spectacular creatures like tigers, whales and
grizzlies. but, like i said, we'll never agree on
that.
just answer for me a few questions, if you don't mind:
1. why did Cheney go to court to protect the secrecy
of his and Bush's "Energy Task Force" that set energy
policy for our country? all the participants in that
conference represented big energy companies; there
were no environmentalists or advocates for
alternatives like solar and wind. aren't we paying
their salaries? why the secrecy?
2. doesn't it seem just a little suspicious to you
that the only types of energy advocated by Bush are
those that will bring big revenues to his pals in the
oil, gas and nuclear industries? better solar panels
and batteries that you and i could use to achieve
energy self-sufficiency are ignored or thrown an
inconsequential bone. even the touted "hydrogen
economy" he mentioned in a speech would require
massive investments in infrastructure that would bring
enormous profits to a very few companies and high
prices for guess who? you and me.
3. is it just a weird coincidence that Halliburton,
the company that made Cheney a near-billionaire, got
no-bid contracts in Iraq and elsewhere, and that the
whole allocation process was done in secret? if you
were a contractor, and could charge whatever you
wanted for a job, without competing bids, what would
be your motivation for trying to save the taxpayers
any money?
why do you think motivates environmentalists? are
they trying to get rich, or are they trying to save
essential parts of the natural world that we're losing
faster all the time? oil capitalists are motivated by
greed, plain and simple. do you think they care what
the world will be like in 100 years?
i could go on, but maybe you could comment on these
things first.
Bob:
>>However I think it is important that we understand
that the cause of all the pain that is coming is the
enviromentalists, not the oil companies.
Bob, i think you ate the blue pill. try the red one
next time.
walker