The drastic rise in oil prices which is expected to continue to at least $200/barrel (from the current $139) is going to force gut-wrenching changes in the American economy, as indeed in the world economy. Is this all a giant conspiracy to block the rise of 'Chindia' - the China-India phenomenon which is expected to dwarf the US economy in a few decades - by starving those two rising global powers of the oil needed for their enormous growth?
Apparently not. What seems to be the problem is that the world has reached the so-called ' topping-point' - the point at which half the world's proven oil reserves have been exhausted, after which - according to a geologist named Hubbert- world oil production will inevitably decline. Hubbert's 'Law' has already been proven to be correct in American oil-fields - once half-depleted - their output only declines...
Warnings about this crisis have been coming for decades but the inability of the existing oil producers to match the increase in demand caused by Chindia have finally lent credence to those pleas.
Unless the world moves away from its dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels which are now half-depleted - the topping-point having been reached in 2008 by one estimate - and makes massive investments in renewable energy from wind, tides, the sun..... as well as in nuclear, tar-sands and other options considered undesirable or costly.....drastic consequences can ensue....For example the awesome network of American highways and the great automobile industry and its derivatives......could - at least in theory - end up as abandoned and obsolete....as useless as dinosaur skeletons.
Similarly the world's greatest armed force - the American one - so heavily dependent on gasoline - could be severely handicapped - or be forced to become marauders for oil like those murderous gangsters in the Mad Max film series. Come to think of it - isn't that what the American armies already are...with their criminal occupation of Iraq and plans against Iran?
Oil-marauding has hardly proven to be cheap for America - they have already spent close to $1 trillion in Iraq according to Nobel-winning economist Stiglitz - and may have at least another trillion or two to spend/lose between domestic macro-economic effects and on health-care and disability for returning Iraq veterans. Perhaps the money is better spent on developing alternative energy...?
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
DISHONEST BROKER IN THE MIDEAST
There is no more hypocrital government than the USA....despite all the 'peace summits' the US does not really want the Palestinian question resolved. Their purpose is to use Israel's occupation of Palestine as an excuse to be in the region - directly as in military bases in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, but also indirectly through the massive ($4 billion annual) 'aid' to Israel - to keep their rapacious hands on the Grand Prize - the oil in the region.
But a massive armed robbery of Arab and Iranian oil does not make for a good cover story - delivering the Jews their 'promised land' is a much better option, and one which sells easily to the Christian fundamentalists and Bible-thumpers in America, who nonetheless remain convinced that the ultimate destination of the Jews is an altogether different one from those few blood-stained miles in the desert..... Go figure....
Just how massive is the aid to Israel? As comparison, the US gives the entire continent of Africa - perhaps the poorest region in the world - $5 billion annually.
For a fully researched analysis with overwhelming proofs, check out Noam Chomsky's writings, particularly 'Fateful Triangle'. Despite capitulations on virtually every issue by the desperate Palestinians, the American-Israeli 'axis of evil' have defeated every attempt by them to achieve any state - even one that is 'tiny, disarmed, fragmented, and utterly dominated by Israel'.
By ruthlessly defeating the Palestinian moderates who want peace at almost any cost, the Americans and Israelis themselves have fostered and provoked radical reactions from the Palestinians. This has in turn allowed them to retaliate in incomparably worse fashion, while continuing to delude the world that Palestinian 'terrorism' and suicide-bombings are the reason there is no settlement in the region.
Iran is the bad guy because it defies this deceitful American-Israeli policy.....like Saddam Hussein did.
But a massive armed robbery of Arab and Iranian oil does not make for a good cover story - delivering the Jews their 'promised land' is a much better option, and one which sells easily to the Christian fundamentalists and Bible-thumpers in America, who nonetheless remain convinced that the ultimate destination of the Jews is an altogether different one from those few blood-stained miles in the desert..... Go figure....
Just how massive is the aid to Israel? As comparison, the US gives the entire continent of Africa - perhaps the poorest region in the world - $5 billion annually.
For a fully researched analysis with overwhelming proofs, check out Noam Chomsky's writings, particularly 'Fateful Triangle'. Despite capitulations on virtually every issue by the desperate Palestinians, the American-Israeli 'axis of evil' have defeated every attempt by them to achieve any state - even one that is 'tiny, disarmed, fragmented, and utterly dominated by Israel'.
By ruthlessly defeating the Palestinian moderates who want peace at almost any cost, the Americans and Israelis themselves have fostered and provoked radical reactions from the Palestinians. This has in turn allowed them to retaliate in incomparably worse fashion, while continuing to delude the world that Palestinian 'terrorism' and suicide-bombings are the reason there is no settlement in the region.
Iran is the bad guy because it defies this deceitful American-Israeli policy.....like Saddam Hussein did.
Friday, June 6, 2008
FOOLS IN HIGH PLACES - A LETTER TO THE STAR
Will be ever be rid of foolishness in high places? Not too long ago, an Ivy-league 'star' professor boldly proclaimed 'the end of history', leaving one to wonder if he even understood history. Then Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Bob Woodward admitted on Larry King's show, after the American force occupying Iraq found no WMD whatsoever, that he had truly believed that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were threats to America. Like most of the leading lights of the North American media and academia, he had been apparently unaware that Iraq had been bombed 'back to the stone-age' ín 1991, then kept on its knees (if not its back) with economic sanctions, harassed incessantly with UN arms inspections, and tortured with ad-hoc bombings by the US and UK air-forces whenever the leaders of those countries needed a boost in their domestic political ratings.
Still... foolishness is more benign than the thinly disguised lies of leading historians like Niall Ferguson who write about 'Armageddon' if Iran acquires nuclear energy which even environmentalists around the world are now touting as the preferred solution to global warming and the crisis caused by the limits to supply of fossil fuels. Apparently the Oxford-educated and Harvard-employed Dr. Ferguson is unaware that Iran doesn't even have an army or navy of any significance, let along nuclear weapons, whereas the supposed target of Iran's hostility - Israel, has every type of conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear weapon in abundance, and is a partner with the US in cutting edge 'research' to maintain an invincible superiority over its Islamic neighbours.
(What the erudite Oxonian-at-Harvard does know beyond any doubt however, is that Iran is EVIL, while the US, UK, and Israel are not...The learned Professor holds these truths to be self-evident...no proof necessary.... No surprise then, that he is adviser to John McCain..)
I eagerly launched into the half-page the Star generously gave Professor Laxer on Wednesday June 4, expecting to learn something, what will all the photos of international leaders and the sexy title - 'Etiquette of Empire', only to discover it was largely hot air. What is Dr. Laxer's point - that American Presidents have traditionally found time for leaders that matter, while snubbing those that don't? This is information? Such behavior by US presidents has been no different from that of any gangster, bully, social matron, queen-bee, or what-have-you. It is to be found everywhere- in the petty politics and back-stabbing of workplaces, social and sports clubs, even occasionally in families. It's called human nature, I think, or at least the unsavoury part of it.
So in his ode to pomposity, did Dr. Laxer have a point? Apparently yes - he wanted to signal to Barack Obama that he must learn quickly the so-called 'etiquette of empire', The Professor is wrong, dead wrong. We don't need more American bullying and war-crimes, euphemistically called unilateral action. We need a new approach. If Mr. Obama does become President, and follows through on his stated intent to meet (without pre-conditions) with leaders of nations called the axis of evil by a man 80% of Europeans consider the world's biggest terrorist and threat to peace, this would be a major step to reducing international tension, conflict and tragedy.
Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has already begun to back-track, as evidenced by his pledge to Florida's Jewish voters to maintain America's one-sided support for Israel. Political realities may allow one the audacity of hope, but not apparently the audacity to act on that hope.
Still, it would be nice if people from academia and the media gave good counsel, instead of foolish ones. They need to remember Julius Streicher. It is not just those who kill that are criminal, but also those who provide the intellectual justification for the killing.
Still... foolishness is more benign than the thinly disguised lies of leading historians like Niall Ferguson who write about 'Armageddon' if Iran acquires nuclear energy which even environmentalists around the world are now touting as the preferred solution to global warming and the crisis caused by the limits to supply of fossil fuels. Apparently the Oxford-educated and Harvard-employed Dr. Ferguson is unaware that Iran doesn't even have an army or navy of any significance, let along nuclear weapons, whereas the supposed target of Iran's hostility - Israel, has every type of conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear weapon in abundance, and is a partner with the US in cutting edge 'research' to maintain an invincible superiority over its Islamic neighbours.
(What the erudite Oxonian-at-Harvard does know beyond any doubt however, is that Iran is EVIL, while the US, UK, and Israel are not...The learned Professor holds these truths to be self-evident...no proof necessary.... No surprise then, that he is adviser to John McCain..)
I eagerly launched into the half-page the Star generously gave Professor Laxer on Wednesday June 4, expecting to learn something, what will all the photos of international leaders and the sexy title - 'Etiquette of Empire', only to discover it was largely hot air. What is Dr. Laxer's point - that American Presidents have traditionally found time for leaders that matter, while snubbing those that don't? This is information? Such behavior by US presidents has been no different from that of any gangster, bully, social matron, queen-bee, or what-have-you. It is to be found everywhere- in the petty politics and back-stabbing of workplaces, social and sports clubs, even occasionally in families. It's called human nature, I think, or at least the unsavoury part of it.
So in his ode to pomposity, did Dr. Laxer have a point? Apparently yes - he wanted to signal to Barack Obama that he must learn quickly the so-called 'etiquette of empire', The Professor is wrong, dead wrong. We don't need more American bullying and war-crimes, euphemistically called unilateral action. We need a new approach. If Mr. Obama does become President, and follows through on his stated intent to meet (without pre-conditions) with leaders of nations called the axis of evil by a man 80% of Europeans consider the world's biggest terrorist and threat to peace, this would be a major step to reducing international tension, conflict and tragedy.
Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has already begun to back-track, as evidenced by his pledge to Florida's Jewish voters to maintain America's one-sided support for Israel. Political realities may allow one the audacity of hope, but not apparently the audacity to act on that hope.
Still, it would be nice if people from academia and the media gave good counsel, instead of foolish ones. They need to remember Julius Streicher. It is not just those who kill that are criminal, but also those who provide the intellectual justification for the killing.
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