The oil and gas industry spent over $440 million since 1998 on campaigns

[cthrumatrix]

In Brief: The oil and gas industry has spent more than $440 million since 1998 on campaign contributions and lobbying.
The oil and gas industry has spent more than $440 million since 1998 on campaign contributions and lobbying, the Center for Public Integrity disclosed July 15th in a major report on the oil and gas industry. Videos from the report launch:

Intro <12:22> |
Q&A Part I <8:01> |
Q&A Part II <6:19>

NOW with Bill Moyers covered the report. It is a scathing look at how, increasingly, America has become a government of, by and for the privileged few who not only can buy access and influence but worse, actually write or redraft policy to their benefit, at the expense of the people.

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/news/265

Remember as we go through Peak Oil...take note of "why people turned the other way"...

Our politicians sold us down the river.

[cthrumatrix]

1. Listen to it...talks about Cheney's involvement ...and more

[whistle]

2. Doesn't America use over 50 million barrels of oil per day....

...so at $53 a barrel that's a small price to control an entire nation.

[cthrumatrix]

3. it's about 8 billion a year...25% of the world output

[whistle]

6. 8 billion barrels is about 22 million a day, but that is still a lot of...

...oil. How many trillions of barrels of oil are in known reserves around the world? I seem to recall a figure of 3 trillion, but I can't remember the source.

If that is accurate and the world is using 32 billion barrels a year (8 / .25) then the current reserves being used at a constant rate would give us about 93.8 years (3,000,000,000,000nr / 32,000,000,000 usage).

If I understand "peak oil", that is the point at which demand outstrips the ability to discover and tap new supplies which adds to the known reserves. The Alaskan North East shelf reserve is known, but still untapped, so going into that field does not add to the reserve pool. Only finding yet undiscovered sources of new oil is the only way the reserve pool can be increased. By that definition we are now at or past "peak oil"! And given that fact, the national policy of the U.S. and for that matter all nations of the world is to conserve oil and reduce consumption and find alternatives now.

[cthrumatrix]

4. again...an area our corporate media refuse to talk about

especially with PEAK OIL - here!

[Grooner Five]

5. In the interest of being fair...

Laywers and law firms have given nearly that much to Democrats alone in the same time frame, and spend far more on political contributions than the oil industry.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?ind=K

Money is all over the political process, and no party or ideology is without its agenda-driven benefactors. One of the great things about our political system is that the interests often balance out.



They gave $190 million in 2004 alone, and 71% of it to Democrats.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.asp?Ind=K

If I'm not going to accuse them of "controlling the country," then I can't accuse the oil industry of the same thing. Each industry has the legal right to take part in our political process.

[Bridget Burke]

7. How many wars have benefited Democratic lawyers?

Did our last Democratic vice-president have secret meetings with lawyers to set national & foreign policy?

How many Democratic lawyers have complained that they can't afford to open new law schools? (The oil companies complain they haven't built any new refineries--because they've spent the money buying politicians or because of those pesky environmental laws?)

How much money do Democratic lawyers earn every time someone buys a gallon of gas? Yes--people pay lawyers; but even those who do not drive pay when goods cost more to be transported to the store. (Please, don't tell me how medical costs are tied to lawsuits. Tort reform was tried in Texas & all expenses continue to go up.)

Some lawyers may produce a bit of "hot air"--but does it smell like a refinery? (Gulf Coast dweller here.)

[JimmyJazz]

9. It seems we are the victims of another swoop 'n poop

If they are so stinkin' right, why don't they stick around long enough for some reasonable debate?

[JimmyJazz]

8. self delete

I'll save this for another day.

[SpaceBuddy008]

10. Awash in Profits-How much they spend on 'Peak' KOOL-AID cmpgn?

~Recently, numerous publications have appeared warning that oil production is near an unavoidable, geologically-determined peak that could have consequences up to and including "war, starvation, economic recession, possibly even the extinction of homo sapiens"

with the stakes this high i would be careful of agenda's being forced upon with heavy handed shrill, shillery and refusal to respect open & fair debate protocol.

especially with refusal to open records of energy meetings and currently being gouged at the pump-I HEARD THE TRUCKERS ARE NOT HAPPY AND STRIKE TALK WAS ON THE MSM LAST NITE



It seems to me that, in the final analysis, what the 'Peak Oil' crowd is selling looks very much like what the Bush administration is selling: control of popular opinion through fear. The methodology and the goals (justifying endless war and openly fascistic domestic policies) appear to be the same. The only difference that I can see is that Team Bush sells the agenda through fear of phantom terrorists, while Team 'Peak Oil' sells it through fear of a phantom apocalypse just over the horizon.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

~I think the deception speaks directly to the issue of whether 'Peak Oil' is real. Why all the deception about the true origins of oil, and about who is behind the concept , and about the viability of alternative energy sources? There has to be a reason why the idea is being sold with so much deception.



These 'Peak Oil' enthusiasts seem to be so damn busy preparing for armageddon that they don't have any time to spare to review any opposing points of view.

~How is it possible to ascertain the rate at which oil is generated and replenished when the only hard data comes from an industry that doesn't acknowledge that oil is generated at all?

All of the figures thrown around in the debate over 'Peak Oil' come from the petroleum industry. And all of those figures are based on the notion of oil as a static resource.

~ And yet now, when the stakes are considerably higher, he seems to suggest that we should accept the industry's pronouncements as the truth. I find such a stance difficult to understand.

~Bissada said, in 1995, that it was "too expensive in the present economic climate." But how about now, in a climate of "Holy shit! We're all going to die!"? Is it still too expensive? Is it really conceivable that, if the situation were as dire as it has been presented as being, we wouldn't have taken such rudimentary measures as checking for the replenishment of abandoned wells?

~"I think you should know about 'Resource Denial Theory.' It's a sub-section of Geopolitical Theory, so beloved of the Bushite and Zbigniew Brzezinski crowds, and states you must take control of areas where strategic resources are located - like oil - and prevent rivals from entering. Your power derives from the control of these resources."

~In other words, it's not about seizing the resources that we need to survive; it's about denying our 'enemies' the resources that they need to survive.

~We are hearing doomsday predictions of the demise of man. Human civilization as we know it is in its final hours. And we have, apparently, simply thrown up our hands in despair. Why bother looking for new sources of petroleum? Why bother double checking old sources of petroleum? Why bother giving any consideration to any alternative sources of energy? Why bother doing anything at all?


Clearly, there is something very, very wrong with this picture.

~I have already posed a series of questions for the 'Peak Oil' crowd, all of them pertaining to the deception employed to sell the concept: Why are we being deceived about the true origins of oil and gas? Why are we being deceived about who is really behind the notion of 'Peak Oil'? And why are we being deceived about the viability of various alternative energy sources?

To those questions I now need to add another, equally important, question: Why is such a concerted effort being made to silence and discredit anyone who challenges the 'Peak Oil' theory?


*****




Why, if logic, intuition, reason and biology agree that peace is vastly preferable to war, do we not have the general perception that peace is exerting, in useful, significant and powerful ways, its natural supremacy over war? Why do so many continue to regard peace and peace efforts/work as being "pie-in-the-sky" or "the impossible dream"--the province of a few dreamy-eyed, out-of-touch-with-reality do-gooders and malcontents? Why is the subject of peace given so little attention in our schools, public/political discourse and public media? Why is peace so often defined in the public mind, as no more than the "absence of war"? Why do so many, associate the term, Peace, with descriptors such as--dangerous, weak, pointless, impotent, fantastic, impossible and failure?


Redefining Peace-

(3) "...the understanding that peace is both inner and outer. It is a condition of consciousness, a state of being and becoming which involves cognition, conation and affection. In its integral stage it has a contentment and fulfillment because it is its own witness and has a calm and a repose and a balance of the intelligence of the head and the heart, an intuitive understanding that is born of wisdom and compassion, a harmony that transcends opposites or contraries and says without speaking, knows without looking, and is without doing. Peace in the integral being is consciousness of love and light." (contributed by Dr. Vasant V. Merchant, Editor, The International Journal of Humanities and Peace), and lastly (but not finally),

(4) To be enduring, peace must include minimally, the following attributes: resource sufficiency, cooperation, freedom from ignorance and illiteracy; personal and communal opportunities, compassion and caring for others, behaviors and actions that result in all parties "winning", renewable, sustainable energy--sufficient hope, love and prosperity for all, and prospects for the "good life" for all.

We now have an expanded (albeit, not exhaustive) global, spiritual, meta-physical, physical, philosophical, biological, anthropological, economic, social, political, natural and operational definition of peace. Peace is defined as being a normal, natual and essential condition for the continued and continuing progression of all humanity toward 100% success.