DRILLING OUR WAY TO OIL INDEPENDENCY ISN’T THE ANSWER
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistAs much as many people would
like to believe…
Drilling in our own backyard for that limited supply of oil; isn’t going to put us on the road to energy independency any quicker today, let alone tomorrow
–especially from the unwavering grip of foreign oil.
For once, Bush had said the one right thing in his entire failed Presidency:
It would take ten years to bring all this refined oil to market.
And from market to US consumers.
In ten years!
Imagine for the moment, that oil and gas prices aren’t likely going to subside from their current peaks–and they just continue to rise and rise, and
rise.
Think paying $4.50 a gallon is bad enough here in the States? Think
double that in just ten years–as global demand outstrips supply; especially if countries like China and India continue to use more and more oil.
Oil prices will most like have surpassed $200 easy, even $300 a barrel; in concordance with a dollar that’s as worthless as the German mark was during the second world war–with most oil-producing countries now trading in other forms of currency like the euro–instead of the greenback.
US consumers are beyond pinched for money–as sky-high gas prices and food prices have forced many Americans to fall back on other means of getting food or growing it themselves.
By the time oil from these allegedly built refineries comes back to America, the average drop in gas prices wouldn’t make much of a real difference to the consumer strapped to the core by high has prices.
The sad truth is, most of the 68 million acres of land
leased to Big Oil has gone unused these last 10 or 20 years. Big Oil doesn’t want to build new refineries or refine further more oil into gas.
What they do
want is more free handouts from the federal government. And in the meantime, production at most US refineries in the here and
now continue to drop here and there; in a transparent effort to artificially
inflate the price at the pump and elsewhere.
Combined with a weak dollar and many other geopolitical factors, there just simply isn’t
enough oil in our own country (that being 3% of the world's total reserves held
by the United States of America) to sustain our current burn rate of 21-28 million barrels of oil per day.
Blaming past administrations for opting out of drilling in our own backyard is not going to make our problem go away either.
The harsh reality is, is that America is finally at a crossroads with its oil dependency. Call it an
apex if you will–a peak which must only start downwards until we hit rock bottom again.
In light of that, we must start developing alternate sources of energy–and wean ourselves off this oil trip. Nuclear power is a limited option, because disposing of all that waste is even more trickier now, than it was back in the 70s–prior to Three Mile Island.
Building ten more–like McCain envisions–would take billions of dollars and years of political and environmental wrangling from all sides, before they can even be started; let alone
completed.
What we can do as a country, as a people, and as a
nation, is to start addressing our failing transportation infrastructure and obsolete power grid.
Rebuild both so that we can go green. The South and the Southwest have the two
abundant sources of energy which has been surprisingly overlooked for the last 30 years:
Solar and wind.
The Northeast can also benefit strongly from wind energy. But they can also start building tidal-generating stations to run clean energy from the ocean that way.
The Midwest has more of the same wind and solar benefits as their southern cousins. And they can build a hydro-electric generating station along the Mississippi River and use its power to generate clean energy.
The West Coast presently is using both wind and solar to power a small portion of their energy needs, but are also into hydroelectric power as well.
However, it’s not enough to give the country its needed independency from fossil fuels.
If we could only apply what we know about improved wind and solar technology nation-wide, we would be close to our oil independency 10 years hence than we are now.
Unfortunately, what’s standing in the way of that nice vision is Big Oil, one-sided politics, and of course…
blind ignorance.
And those will take a long time to get over than our immediate need to exploit our environment for a few years’ worth of black gold.
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: Big Oil, drilling, economy, energy dependence, energy policies, enviroment, hydroelectric power, oil, solar, wind
GAS TAX HOLIDAY A JOKE IN ITSELF
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistToday, oil went to $120 a barrel on news of a further weakening US dollar. (That means it will take more dollars to buy our oil and many other precious commodities.)
But despite acknowledgments that a gas tax ‘holiday’ will not work in the best interest of the American consumers’ pocketbooks (not to mention the devastating ripple effect it will have on our nation’s roads and highways infrastructure system), both John McCain and Hillary Clinton are
still advocating such a thing–even though passage of such legislation is in the realm of impossibility.
The whole
notion behind the new political ploy is just a classic Washingtonian gimmick designed to buy people’s votes–at least the stupid ones anyways. (More than likely? They are from the same voting bloc whom gave Bush his second term of office.)
Getting down to it, a $30 savings in gas over the summer isn’t going to buy you, me, or anyone
else peace of mind or financial security. Not when we are faced with (still), high energy prices, high food prices, the mortgage meltdown, the credit crunch, and job insecurities.
Most of the people whom are against this idea
knows this. But those who are for it…? They either must be dumber than a stump, or blind as a bat–if they think that this money saved is a
good idea for all of America.
In reality, it isn’t. Like I said before, this will have a deeply
negative impact on our nation’s roads and highways. This gas tax that both McCain and Clinton are in favor of eliminating for the next 3 months will also
eliminate much needed funding for our nation’s infrastructure!
Roads, highways, even bridges. Does anyone remember the W-35 bridge which collapsed last year? McCain was quoted as saying that it was due to state government waste–but he backed off the unproven claim before that gaffe damage could be made permanent.
Well–in any event–every bridge span, road section, or highway overpass is going to be
vulnerable should this tax be eliminated. And not just that, but all those hundreds of thousands of jobs (300K+ by some estimates) whom
depend on this vital gas tax to keep things going and them employed.
Our foreign oil needs are so severe that we need to start taking a
real look into how we can safely develop alternative energies and ways to wean our butts off the Saudi teat.
But we can’t do it when we have politicians like Clinton and McCain going around and parading idiotic (and destructive) energy policies which will do
nothing to address the problems of energy dependence at home. (That includes drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Arctic Reserve–or ANWAR–for oil that won‘t even put a dent in our daily consumption levels. Or current gas prices.)
We need strong energy legislation that is designed to address the problems forthright and constitutes a positively lasting
impact on our energy needs.
And only
then will we be off the oil kick which has held the US hostage for the last century.
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: energy dependence, energy policies, gas tax holiday, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, oil
RECESSION OR NOT--HERE WE COME!
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistWe all know it’s coming.
A dreaded recession.
Oil is up.
Gas is up.
The dollar is weak.
Gold prices are past $800 an ounce.
Inflation is climbing.
I’m paying $4.19 a loaf for the good stuff. Not to mention $10 for baby loaves of cheese (a piece), along with pricy eggs, butter, and milk.
Heating our homes is going to be costly this winter.
And the cost of living is out of control.
Bottom line: Our nation simply cannot continue on the same path that it has been–spending itself into debt so recklessly.
But despite the warning signs, people like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke still
believe that everything will be peachy and we all just gotta keep believing in the mythical Tooth Fairy.
“Low interest rates are going to keep our economy going!”“The dollar is weak!” they tell us,
“but it will rebound! You just gotta have faith
!”
Faith?
Faith isn’t watching our government train wreck our economy by spending out of control to the tune of $9.3T dollars. Faith isn’t watching the Fed play Russian roulette with interest rates–dropping them during this housing and credit crunch; instead of tightening and raising rates to keep oil prices from spiraling upwards and keeping a strong check on the
falling dollar.
Faith is asking the US consumer to open their collective eyes and see how much
damage that our government’s reckless economic policies are doing to us–
the American citizen.
That’s the open reality here. Not these fantasy comments on how the economy is going to continue to weather this and that–when the reality on the ground says much differently.
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1 at yahoo.comLabels: debt, economy, fantasy, gold, interest rates, oil, reality
US GOVERNMENT SHOULD STOP FAKING TERROR ATTACKS
By Schuyler ThorpeAuthor and Political ActivistHere we go again: Another “alleged” attack involving foreigners with little ties to terrorism, having no operational plan, or even had the chance to obtain
any explosives long before the so-called plan ever went into
effect.
Never mind the fact that this plan was far from being
realized means little to our government hacks.
They are too busy enjoying the hype, dancing around the bonfire and postulating on what
could have been, had all these plots supposedly disrupted–been carried out. (From the JFK to the Sears Tower plot.) But sadly, all the US government is doing, is undermining its own credibility in the process.
How many times have they cried Wolf already? And how many people in this country believe anything
they say these days?Don't be surprised if anyone but their supporters do.
In light of 9-11, there hadn’t been a major terror attack on US soil. But curiously enough, fake plots, fake terror alerts started to bloom in 2002, 2003, and 2004–especially around the mid-term elections, or the Presidential ones.
But they weren't based on
realiable intelligence. Or from spies abroad.
No. All of these alerts came from our own government. Deep within their own security and defense circles--it seems.
In 2005, we only had 2 such alerts, last year, we had three, and this year, we’ve had 2–those involving the JFK and Fort Dix plots. Why the sudden drop off in alerts?
It might be because the government needs time to come up with something more plausible to sell to the public--to see just how many will buy into their next "staged" plot.
But while the government is claiming success in stopping these faked plots, oddly enough--nothing ever becomes of the men implicated, or the evidence supposedly obtained because of the plots.
Why? Because these people are nothing but convenient scapegoats for the government. Tools to be used at their discretion, and then thrown away when they are no longer useful.
In fact, most of the "plots" stopped in the past–as Bush claims to have done since 2003–have quietly unraveled in the background: The suspects involved not even charged with anything less than common immigration violations, and the charges of terrorism dropped–only because the government itself had little to go on; from the original (and fantastic) charge of terrorism against the country itself.
But what’s even more bothersome, is the fact that most of these suspects aren’t even Muslim in nature. Those dirty "evil" terrorists we call come to loathe and hate. (Right?)
No, these people are representatives of other ethnic groups. They have little or no ties to terrorism, and the information acquired through covert means on these "plots" is highly suspect and dubious at best.
But don’t think it ends there. Even in light of fake plots, our own government is quite capable of manufacturing a real terror plot in itself, and inflicting it upon its own citizens–just to milk more money out of Congress for defense spending and other pet projects.
Something similar was tried in the 60s--to turn the people into a support block for a failed attempt by the CIA to go to war with Cuba.
The operation went nowhere and was eventually covered up: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/northwoods.html
Now, many suspect that 9-11 was an inside job. And maybe it was–given how lax the government was in the months leading up to 9-11. But we won’t know until years later–at any rate.
But the fact remains: None of these plots disrupted so conveniently by our government have anything to do with the war on terror.
Why?
1) Because our government hasn’t been able to successfully uncover any real terror plots since 9-11, and 2) It desperately needs to keep the people in line and in fear of the next “real” attack. So that in case one does happen again, it can go on saying that it did all it could, but it let one slip through. (Conveniently, of course.)
It's all part of the cycle of terror--perpetrated by our own government. Freely (I might add)--all in the name of democracy.
If you need any more convincing, type the words, fake terror attacks into your search bar, and you’ll get a whole list of what our government is actually trying to achieve through subversive blackmail.
All in the name of fear, control, and now... ?
Oil.
Schuyler Thorpe is an author, a political activist, and a frequent letter writer to The Everett Herald of Snohomish County. He can be reached at: starchildalpha1@yahoo.com
Labels: attacks, control, ethnic groups, fake, fear, government, manufacturing, money, Muslim, oil, scare, terror
