Oil and the Human Struggle for Power, Domination, and the Right to Exist-Part III

It is true: war and oil go together quite well. But what if we lived in a world of windmills and solar-powered machines and collectors that provided us all the power the peoples of the earth could ever use? Imagine a world where oil was not king, a world where first and foremost oil was used to produce plastics and lubrication for windmills and solar furnaces? Is such a world total fantasy? Or is it a reality that was snuffed out long ago with petro dollar propaganda that lobbied, bought, and paid off governments which would thwart green and other forms of energy not tied to oil? Maybe it was no accident that Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House roof when he was president. And likewise, when Ronald Reagan had them taken down.

Just imagine. What if we had solar and wind power up to speed by the time of the Arab Embargo to where we could have kicked OPEC to the curb?  What if we Americans had made an intelligent decision to just stop being addicted to oil then and used our splendid technology and factories to rethink and to retool our lives, our very existence, our future? What if we had Germany’s example and instead of giving government subsidies to Exxon and Chevron the United States would have had a solar program such as the stunning one Germany promulgated some 2 decades ago? See, Germany owned its own electric company. It was the only game in town. The going rate back then for electricity was about 15 cents per kilowatt hour. But Germany told all the people, the villages, and the townships that if they were to construct their very own solar panels to produce electricity, that any excess energy produced, the government would pay the producer a whopping 55 cents per kWh??!! It happened. The program went on for years, and as the German 100-year-old, worn out electric grid was replaced with new and more efficient solar panels, gradually, the government weaned the newcomer producers of energy off the higher 55 cents per kwh subsidized price. It went from 55 cents to 50 to 40 until the price stabilized ad a normal price of between 10 and 15 cents per kWh once again. Everybody won. The common citizen made lots of money off selling excess electricity back to the German grid. The German Government and Electric Company got a brand new grid that would not fail like the present day American grid does often and which at best is only 50% efficient and subject to Brownout failures at any time. Just imagine millions of acres of land in America with solar panels, with no moving parts to lubricate with oil. Just imagine how many more sun days we have here than Germany does, where trying to collect energy from cloudy overcast skies is tough to do. And try to imagine a nation that wanted to share in the prosperity of all its citizens by subsidizing them well in a joint endeavor that brought real wealth and prosperity to all of Germany. Just imagine.

Just imagine such an America that produced enough energy from the sun to power not just our own nations’ needs, but with an abundance of electricity to sell to Canada, Mexico, all of Central America, and South America as well. Just imagine. 

Such an America would not need to filter smokestacks because there would be none. Neither would there be exhaust tailpipes in a nation of electric cars powered by electricity from the sun. There would be no desperate need for nuclear power or the dangers associated with radiation and disposal of radioactive waste. There would be no mercury and other toxic chemicals in every cubic centimeter of the Western Hemisphere because there would be no coal-fired electricity production. Burning any fossil fuels which puts the mercury into every trout, salmon, mackerel, and bass in every pristine lake and stream in the world, would be a faded memory of a time back when we thought as a stone age people that cared little for our planet, our home, and yes, the very earth. Global Warming would be an argument that would ring hollow because the demise of a society that burns oil in internal combustion engines would be history.

Imagine if we had put our solar furnace technology into force the way Germany did. Schott Solar, a German company that makes extruded hollow glass rods as a component to carry a saline solution, the apparatus of which is cradled in a system of long convex mirrors to track and follow the sun, produces megawatts of energy. Just from the sun. The saline solution heats quickly to a temperature that will turn water into steam which is used to propel giant electric turbines. Megawatts. From the sun. No CO2 production.   No mercury. No acid rain and no pollution of the planet. No more need for the EPA.

Schott’s gift to the planet

One such Schott system could power a medium-sized city.

Spain is no slacker either when it comes to creating wind and solar power. Gamesa and Acciona, 2 of the top 10 producers of electric generating windmills account for the installed power of over 3,880 megawatts in various countries of the world. Denmark companies (Vesta and Siemans) at almost 6,000 megawatts take the title of the world’s largest producer of installed windmills on earth. 

World’s largest wind-power companies

Spain has fields of solar-powered furnaces where acres of mirrors are programed to follow the sun’s path and to focus a concentrated solar beam to the top of a tower where steam is created to propel electric turbines. It is ingenious and all powered by collecting the sun’s energy.

Spain fires up world’s largest solar tower

So now Spain has sold its technology to the United States where millions of megawatts of these solar electric generating devices are placed and to be expanded in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and New Mexico. It means billions of dollars for Spain and over 100,000 new jobs. America had the technology to do all this and more, so why didn’t we rise to the demand and the challenge? The answer is simple: MONEY.

Instead of leading the world into the 21 Century, the United States is dragging both feet in the new and promising field of alternative energy. Why? Why can’t we make the change? Why cannot Exxon and Shell Oil retool and get with the transition to solar and wind power? Why do we want to just give up on alternative energy that just might save the planet, our jobs, and our dollar just to maintain the status quo of BIG OIL? Simply put, the Big Oil and Big Electric and Gas want it that way. They are quite mad about making money for the short term and letting the rest of America go to hell in a hand basket.

First, it would take too much money and time for Big Oil to retool and rethink the problem. It is easier for them to just keep on doing what they have known to make billions of dollars of profit each quarter. They have paid billions in ads to demonize Environmentalists who support Green Energy. “Tree Huggers” they call them. When oil controls the purse strings of the world and every country, it is not likely that Big Oil will give it up or transition to other forms of energy. Oil is power, and the real estate, the very ground over which the oil is pumped and flows is the most valuable dirt in the entire universe, at least according to Big Oil.

Second, just think of all the secondary businesses and companies that would get screwed and blued if the world switched to a kinder, softer, quieter, less-polluting technology like solar and wind power. The first to feel it would be all the companies dependent on the protection business. This means the Military Industrial Complex of War Corporations. General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed, the missile companies that charge $1 million dollars per Tomahawk Missile and even more. All the nuclear weapon facilities that manufacture bombs and delivery systems would go hurting. There would be no need for arms and weapons if there was nothing to protect, namely, Oil and the real estate where it is sucked out of the ground. Small arm companies would shrink to insignificance no matter how many Billy Bob’s still might clamor about protecting themselves with a rifle in the gun rack of their pickup truck rear window.

Third, there would be no more need for the United States to have overseas foreign military bases. With over 797 military bases and over 2.5 million overseas billets, it would be high time to bring them all home were Oil to become a secondary energy source for Planet Earth. China, Japan, Germany, Spain, and Denmark (imagine that) are all leading the way to the inevitable: conversion to alternative means of energy production such as wind and solar. There would be no more real estate to protect such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan, ad infinitum when it comes to oil sources. Instead of fretting about Iran and nuclear weapons the world would have to make up its mind if it wanted to keep to the old ways. Instead of protecting oil and feuding with, occupying, and fighting with countries and terrorists who want to hurt us because of oil and our addiction to it, we all would just make the switch to solar and wind power for all the planet’s needs. All our soldiers could retrain for meaningful jobs in saving the planet and producing electricity for all of mankind.

It is likely though, that it will never happen. Big Oil and the money behind it and maintaining fear of the threat of terrorism in the hearts of humans are too lucrative. Think all the no-bid government contractors could give up selling Uncle Sam (nee us taxpayers) all those $500 hammers? Think those good old boys could get by on selling a hammer for the reasonable Wal-Mart price of say, $9.95? If you think they could make the transition tune in next time for Oil Part IV when we discuss some of the devices and chicanery involved in keeping the vast American population dumbed down as to what is going on with Energy in the USA. And why George W. Bush, in this land of the free, exercised Executive Privilege to seal the minutes of Cheney’s Energy Department Meeting minutes from all of us right before Cheney met with Ken Lay just 4 days before Enron fell. The US Government Accounting Office really got pissed off over that and filed suit against Bush and Cheney. But Executive Privilege got exercised once again and slam dunked the GAO and the truth. Again.

Oil and the Human Struggle for Power, Domination, and the Right to Exist-Part II

When early man first discovered fire, it was the most significant discovery of all time. Now he could start fires at will to keep his cave and tents warm, cook his food, and clear land for planting crops. When man first discovered oil, he saw at once that it would burn. Just imagine such a glorious gift from the gods, he must have mused. Oil could be easily extracted in liquid form from the ground under your feet, and it would become the igniter and sustainer of fire. Fuel. Eons later, man found that oil could be easily transported in modern new inventions to propel automobiles, trains, and farm trucks to transport produce and cattle over great distances to market. Later oil would be used in making plastics that are now essential to most everything we touch from fabrics, synthetic shoes, leather, artificial heart valves and body limbs, to circuit boards for computers. Oil enabled the world to engage in world commerce and trade. And war. 

And war and oil go together quite well.

As the Neanderthals protected their source of fire, whether the origin was of flint rocks or of friction from a round stick twirled on a wooden base, modern man became the protector of oil. Oil was and still is the one ingredient a nation cannot do without. And the real estate where oil is present, the very ground, is essential to the prosperity and the very survival of a nation. Early man would fight another clan to protect his source of fire, and from that early time to present, nations are at war with each other in order to protect their vital sources of oil wherever it exists on planet earth.

The Spindletop Oil Field discovery in South Texas was one of the first bonanza discoveries that made real estate zoom many times in value in short periods of time, sometimes in mere hours. And then many of the modern discoveries such as the automobile had yet to be invented and mass-produced. Even then oil was more precious than gold.

Saudi Arabia with its deep pools of oil leads the world in oil exports. It is the most influential member of OPEC, a group of Arab nations which dominate world oil prices. It has vast underground oil pools that supply oil to the whole world, and that has made Saudi Arabia worth protecting militarily. The United States has been the primary protector of the Saudis and their oil so far. Many other small countries in that same region, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen and hundreds of oil-rich countries all over the world have protection in place to guard their precious oil, too. While the Saudis generally show disgust for Americans and western ways, they tolerate us because our military protects their oil. And we could care less whether they like us Yanks or not.

As a result of the world deciding a century ago to give oil the honor of being the foremost source of energy on our planet, many other side businesses have grown into their own and have flourished. The protection business is possibly as big as the oil business itself. The United States with its superior military can and does occupy over a hundred countries all over the world with its 1000s of military bases. In many countries like Iraq, South Korea, and Afghanistan, the United States has boots on the ground by the 100s of thousands. One can say what one believes about the necessity of our overseas bases, but the bottom line every time is that our presence in other countries is to protect the oil nearby or directly underfoot.

China and France both have little oil as a natural resource. So they must import oil from overseas or pay countries like Ghana or Libya to let them drill and extract oil. Without a source of oil, these 2 countries would go to war at the drop of a hat to get and secure it. Why? Every country in the world must have oil or cease to exist. And what country would lay off all its dictators, kings, and mayors, turn the lights out and call it quits? If you answered ‘None’, correct. And China and France have megaton-yielding nuclear weapons and delivery systems.   And would not hesitate to use them if their world sources of oil were threatened.

Terrorism has caused America and other countries of the world to attack, invade, and occupy countries that sponsor terrorism. When Osama bin Laden crashed planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the world was devastated. President Bush knew he would have to react with force. He did by attacking Afghanistan, a country whose government, the Taliban, was known to allow bin Laden to train his terrorist forces there. But for good measure (and against the advice of many experts like Richard Clarke, Hans Blix, and our own CIA) Bush also attacked Iraq. Of course the wars were deadly and still are because we are still there. But why did we attack Iraq?

Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, said it was the best target. Say what? But was it the right target, the just target? So what wrong did Iraq do to the United States? Well, Bush and Cheney said Saddam Hussein had been hanging out with Osama bin Laden. No intelligence report has ever proven that to be true. To get us into a war with Iraq, Bush said, in his address to the nation, Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy Uranium (Yellow Cake) from Africa. British intelligence quickly refuted that intelligence report as bogus. So did George Tenet, then head of the CIA when he cautioned Bush not to mention that falsified intelligence report in his State of the Union Address. Bush did anyway. Funny thing, eh? So why did the United States attack Iraq? Could it be that Iraq has the second largest known deposits of oil in the entire world? Many peoples of the world thought so. And rejected America as an honest, benign world power that would protect the less-powerful countries of the world.

After almost 9 years of occupation, and 10s of thousands of deaths and casualties later, American forces still occupy Iraq. President Obama says our troops are all coming home soon. But will we give up such valuable real estate laden with oil? We shall see. We recently built the biggest and most expensive American Embassy in the world there, and just how many Marines will it take to protect that? And the airstrips. And of course, the oil. The United States cannot allow Iraq’s oil to get away from a country running quickly out of this black life’s blood to all countries of the world.

Oil creates many new industries. Especially when terrorists are afoot trying to set fire to oilfields and to kill Americans. Take Blackwater. Please. Blackwater, an organization of lawless “contractors” as they are called, are a civilian group of paid mercenaries to supplement our own armed service personnel to help fight in Iraq. The owner at the time, Erik Prince, a born-again Bible-thumping Christian, charged George W. Bush about 5 times the normal pay per head uniformed soldiers of the United States Army, Marine Corp, Air Force and Navy were receiving. The first year the United States taxpayers paid Prince a cool Billion dollars for his services, namely mercenary soldiers who flew about in black helicopters shooting people. And these soldiers were immune from being prosecuted for crimes and wanton shooting of civilians. Doesn’t sound much like America, does it? Where oil is, there is corruption, it always seems.

Take Rudy Giuliani. Please. As mayor of New York City when the terrorists hit the Twin Towers, Rudy became an instant hero, a rock star of sorts. Neatly and smoothly he slid into a post Twin Towers attack face of benevolence and formed a consulting company. He hired himself out as a consultant to sell his services as an authority on how to protect a city or state or a sovereign country from terrorist attacks. Must have paid top dollar for Rudy to capitalize on terrorism because he took his former police chief, Bernard Kerik, with him. Kerik, among other sideline ventures into the anti-terrorism enterprises and consultations, was reportedly awarded $10 million in stock warrants for a Taser gun company he owned and used to sell products to city police forces all over the world.

Giuliani recommended Kerik to President George W. Bush to head Homeland Security as the replacement for Tom Ridge. Bush appointed Kerik who quickly withdrew investigations pending against him for criminal activities and ties to organized crime. He was later convicted. Some NYPD head cop, eh? 

Kerik’s Felony Convictions in Living Color

Giuliani's police chief could be problem

Bernard Kerik, ex-NYPD Top Cop, Faces Sentencing Thursday

Oil. It’s all about oil. And its ongoing impact on the world and humanity.

Next, in Part III we will discuss the US Energy Department, Alternative Energy sources and why they have been stifled here at home and why European countries lead the world in green energy today. And how our mimicking the green countries of the world might just save us from destruction and death by oil.

Oil and the Human Struggle for Power, Domination, and the Right to Exist-Part I

I grew up in one of the world’s largest petroleum-processing centers: Port Arthur, Texas. Refineries lined the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Brownsville with heaviest concentrations from Houston to Eastern Louisiana. Important offshore oil wells have been productive for as long as I can remember. The standard of living for all our families up and down the food chain was high per capita, maybe the highest in the nation for almost all of the 20th Century and beyond. The bad news was that you got to smell the skunk cabbage air while brushing your teeth, driving to work, ergo most of your waking hours. But it was not fatal, we were told, and the mind quickly filtered it out of our collective consciousness, we forgot about it, and we worked and prospered and had fun in the sun and Oleanders near the sea. 

Port Arthur was unique. On the sea coast of South East Texas, it made for a splendid port. Ships arrived and sailed from all points of the compass as exports of gasoline and imports of crude oil made for heavy traffic in a new multi-billion dollar business of oil and oil products. The perfect seaport for commerce fit hand in glove to the discovery of the Spindletop Oilfield in 1901 just 17 miles north near the present city of Beaumont, Texas. What a bonus, what an opportunity for capital investment.

Spindletop Oilfield Historical Articles (http://www.history.com/topics/spindletop http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dos03 )

From the ocean at land’s end at Sabine Pass to the mouth of the Neches River to Beaumont made a very convenient waterway to ship crude oil to the seaport of Port Arthur for refining into gasoline and thousands of oil-based products yet to come. Many big oil companies built giant refineries there on the Port Arthur seaport: The Texas Company (Texaco), Exxon (earlier Enco, Esso), and Gulf Oil all had their beginnings there with new refineries to process the large supply of oil in their own backyards, so to speak. The famous Melon family of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania financed and ended up with a controlling share of Gulf Oil Company. Oddly, but not really, Gulf Oil was headquartered in Pittsburg. Everything seems to follow the money, what?

Mass migration from the rural farms brought many families to Gulf Coast of upper Texas. Oilfield and refinery pay was good, the standard of living was high for workers, and jobs were plentiful. A new era had begun. Now an abundant and cheap source of new energy was available to millions. Gasoline and natural gas even drove the generators that made electricity for the home, a new and useful answer to darkness with the advent of the electric light. Many of my ancestors had moved from the country dirt roads and cotton patch to Port Arthur when the refineries mushroomed overnight. They had never seen an electric light. The Texas refineries, in their infancy, used mules as the source of propulsion for wagons necessary to all transport functions within the refinery. My grandfather’s younger brother worked there in the early 1920s. He said that the refinery workers would build huge bonfires at night to ward off the mosquitos. When the fires would die out and the mosquitos returned, the mules would stir the fire up again by hoofing the embers so that the mosquitos would be foiled again, at least temporarily. Smart mules.

In 1940 I was born in Rosebud, Texas to a couple who made a combined salary of $950.00 per year teaching rural school in Central Texas. Well, so much for education opening doors to higher learning and better wages. My father had heard from an uncle who worked at Gulf that they were hiring laborers at $1600.00 to start out. So in 1944 we all moved to Port Arthur and my father got a job at Gulf. Growing up in an oil town seemed desirable. Everyone had a pretty good job in a booming new industry that paid well and allowed your father to buy a work car, thus the 2-car family symbol of prosperity was born. Times were good. We Americans used our own crude oil on American soil. We refined it and made everything from gasoline to plastics, and the rest of the world watched us in envy. Anything made in Japan or (perish the thought) China was cheap and second class to American goods. I remember as a child, I thought that we were very fortunate to have an abundance of things and goods that made our lives more pleasurable, such as nice cars, record players, Elvis, and bubble gum.

But everything changes if enough time passes. Slowly, America began to run out of oil. Or it became cheaper to buy oil from the oil-rich Saudis than to drill here at home. When the Saudis lifted the Arab Embargo, our troubles began. We became dependent upon the most powerful dope-dealer in the history of the world: foreign oil.

The reality of the new scarcity known as peak oil (you got less now than you had yesterday) fell upon us like a giant offshore drilling rig. Some of the oil giants here at home were in deep sh--. What would they do if a source of crude oil could no longer drive the refineries that required millions a day to operate? The Saudis gave us a taste of what a lack of oil and gas lines would be like, not to mention higher prices at the pump. It was a Royal setup.

So the Saudis offered Texaco a deal on their oil for a cut of the Texaco refineries. So right after the Arab Oil Embargo in the early 1970s the new corporation that was to refine Texaco’s oil became Star Enterprises. This was a jointly-owned operation now between Texaco and the Saudis. And the split? Well, the Saudis got half. This silent erosion of American ownership went unseen, without much fanfare. And it continued every year and presently, too, as we are held for ransom to do the bidding of those who have the oil that our country must have or perish from the earth and prove Lincoln wrong.

A new liquid natural gas storage facility was just constructed in Sabine Pass just a few miles from the old oil refineries, at the cost of over $1 Billion dollars. The sign on the gate says Exxon, but the sovereign country of Qatar owns HALF! You know, Qatar, the country that deals in human slave trade and trafficking? A Billion dollars. Wonder how many Americans can put their finger on Qatar on a world map? How many Americans are aware of this unseen takeover of our technology and resources simply because oil is the only game in town when it comes to world energy?

The United States in 2011 is in debt approaching a figure of $15 Trillion (I try to capitalize Billion and Trillion just because it seems appropriate in such times lest we lose touch with the stark reality of where we as a country seem to be heading). Never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever sense that oil would become such a significant and powerful commodity in the lives of all humans on planet earth. I pondered it at times, reflecting on when gasoline was only 17 cents per gallon, and you and your date could buy gas, see a movie, and maybe buy some drive-in burgers, all for $5.00. So why is oil so dire a substance in all our lives now to where we will attack countries, occupy them, fear being blown up by terrorists, and spend Trillions of dollars on the Middle East countries in arms sales and foreign aid? The best answer I know of is that oil was made the standard for energy production. Most all renewable forms of energy have been smothered with lobbyist dollars so that electric cars and wind and solar power for electric power plants are totally retarded by bribes by Big Oil.

Oil is a dirty business in other ways, too. Other than the 100s of thousands of humans slain every year due to oil or oil geography, oil, when burned produces toxic smoke and ash. The internal combustion engine, notwithstanding the idiocy of anti-global warmers such as the Tea Party and much of the GOP dumb-them-downers, has harmful effects on the planet. And the only reason a pseudo-science astro turf company set up by Big Oil, e.g. the Koch Brothers exists is to say that man is NOT the (or even a) cause of global warming. So why would the Koch’s or anybody else want to dumb down the search for truth (the very definition of science, itself)? It’s not that hard when you follow the money. Koch Industries saves Billions a year for every year they can delay modernizing air and water polluting equipment at their refineries. And that money not spent on updating equipment to save the planet and clean up the air we breathe goes directly into the ass pockets of the Koch Brothers and stockholders. Would they do that, though? Really? Take it to the bank. They own that, too. And the Democrats are not without sin, either. Lobbyist dollars to buy votes buys a good deal of those buggers, too. And they all know it.

When I was burning cheap gasoline as a teenager, I had no idea that someday oil would be so crucial to the planet. If you have it, fine, but if you don’t have it, what will it be worth? $5.00 per gallon? $9.50? I fear that we are about to find out.

Next time in Part II we will cover some of the offshoot business of oil, e.g., the sale of arms to protect world oilfields, the Pentagon dollars and lives spent to occupy foreign countries rich in oil, and corporations like Blackwater who Uncle Sam pays billions of dollars per year with our tax dollars.

Who for President in 2012? Or Where has All the Passion Gone?

I enjoyed smoothing out 10 truckloads of fresh white sand on the beach at our house, but today when I saw that a family of Black-Bellied Tree Ducks had taken to the pristine white shoreline it surprised me. What passion I felt at seeing the ducks on the hills of white. Maybe 10 in all, some standing on one leg behind a furled wing, they made a perfect silhouette against white sand and a new sun peaking over the trees. These splendid, endangered, “Do not shoot” waterfowl whistled sweet songs to each other. The feeling lifts you and takes you back. Like when I was a boy of 11 in the endless Corrigan Woods of East Texas with the silence of the trees and the twittering of thousands of birds within the canopy of green with little droplets of sunlight peering through. Then I was discovering wildlife on my on for the first time. But today I watched the stoic poses of Tree Ducks, looking aloof and into the east wind that must have cooled the sand overnight. They knew me. They had observed me, as they went disinterestedly about their duck affairs unafraid for many days as I sculpted the very hillside with trusty Kubota tractor and front-end scoop bucket loader. All this was in preparation for the white sand that came last week. The tractor noise, nor my fishing very near these velvet ducks of many colors and a big black belly that the artist must have forgot to paint, seemed to disturb them. Nor did my casting a Tiny Torpedo, a floating clear bullet of a lure with a silver propeller on the back that spun when you retrieved it slowly on the water’s slick top.

Many Ways of Looking at a Tree Duck. Enjoy.

So this morning a good friend called me. We discussed a bit of politics, government, gold and silver, the price of eggs, the drought, the impending crisis with water shortages, the Fed, Bernanke’s printing presses, nothing out of the ordinary. It is agreed that all the world’s problems and frailties, including global warming, are man’s contributions to the planet, at least partly. We sort them out, trying to see a glimmer of soul within us humans, a caring about us ourselves as a species, as a viable worthwhile source of good that would make the universe smile to know that we are here. 

The practice of lying to one another as humans seems endlessly pathetic and needless, yet it is what we do. To gain an advantage, power, money or otherwise, yet we do it until we cannot separate the truth from illusion. And our human databanks and memory chips become faulty and corrupted at times. Our giant human egos become the smoke pots, and our greed for instant gratification, money, and power, our mirrors. Politicians do it best, or maybe it’s their handlers who buff up candidates with powder and wigs and other cosmetic trappings to make the pig with lipstick seem acceptable (or delude us into believing the pig is not really a pig at all). Our eyes wander about the talking head faces of candidates on big screen TVs, looking for perceived character flaws or assets interchangeably until we wear ourselves out and flip the expeditious coin in our bank of what used to be reason. This business we humans must conduct if we are to do something collectively such as elect a president. And if it looks good, sounds good, and the hair on camera is good, bingo. We decide. The TV messages, the reasoning, the sincerity, all are secondary to the subjective images and nuances we see onscreen in little 30-second ads, mostly, and we decide to give it our best shot and we decide. 

“Audacity of Hope” is catchy. So is “Change you can believe in.” These are, of course, Obamaisms that helped him get elected in 2008. But suffice it to say, for whoever is to blame, we Americans are farther bogged down in the swamp of more debt, more printing money at the Fed, and still have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Guantanamo is still open for business and habeas corpus is still non-existent. Tarp bailouts don’t work, even GM fails and gets absorbed by Uncle Sam, and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are now owned by Uncle Sam and funded by us taxpayers. And our estranged Uncle Sam still wiretaps us in violation of the Constitution.

But not so fast. Who set all these plates of doom to spinning? Well, Reagan borrowed and spent $3 trillion extra during his 8 years as president. It was peacetime (do you love it?) yet the Great Communicator, the Teflon President, the Gipper convinced American voters that Russia was the Evil Empire and needed to be brought to their knees, economically. And enough American voters bought into it and voted for him. Twice. Religion was used against the Democrats like 100s of Tomahawk missiles (at over $1 million a copy) were employed against many ground targets when Bush II attacked Iraq. Bush said Iraq was in cahoots with al Qaeda and had missiles of mass destruction pointed at our very own American cities. And Right Wing religious groups such as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition said, Reagan and Bush II were about God’s business and opposed abortion, so support them. Voters bought into it, and Bush II attacked Afghanistan, then Iraq, and we are still there, thank you very much, Shrub. In dollars, it only cost us taxpayers another $4 trillion borrowed and spent by Bush II. And all this massive borrowing and spending totaled half the debt of all our National Debt during the combined terms of Reagan and Bush II. So will the real big-spending Democrats please stand up?

Reagan’s take on the problem

So Reagan promised to get government off the backs of the people. But it grew in size and drug our nation’s financial integrity into the toilet just as fast as the Fed could print more US dollars to buy a little more time. For those we trusted as leaders, for those who lied and corrupted America, there has been little to no accountability. For a greed that stole America. After all, during war time or peace time if you can convince voters to hold still while Halliburton sells our own government $500 for a single hammer on a no-bid contract, that’s Grand Larceny, isn’t it? So have the American voters become like millions of barnyard chickens that need plucking by the military industrial complex war corporation cronies of their favorite bought-and-paid-for presidents and congressmen? Were we just too trusting? Do we give up and buy the illusion? Just because a talking head candidate with good hair and no heart tells us he is made of truth and worth voting for? It is hard for me to feel passion for any of the candidates thus far, but I want to. I am still looking them over.

I have lived in Texas most of my life. We all used to be fierce in our competitiveness to win races here in Texas before the RNC and Tom DeLay stole an additional 16 seats in the US House of Representatives years ago. Redistricting they called it. And today DeLay has not spent a day in jail, though he was convicted of wrongful use of campaign money funds. Today, the courts are still sorting through the mess Redistricting caused, but Lordy, the damage has already been done. It is hard to put that genie back into the bottle. Texas is a funny place when it comes to judging what’s right and wrong, and the twists and turns for Texas lawmakers to get there, is a bitch sometimes. Sometimes you feel like T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock:

‘I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

The other night my wife and I had dinner with two couples across the lake. They were our neighbors, recent acquaintances , and we played the famous game of “Ain’t it awful” about the drought in Texas and all and how our little 85-acre lake had fallen over 5 feet. I told them about the illustrious Tree Ducks on my new beach, and they seemed pleased. I also told them about how the Water Hyacinth had retreated to the far corners of land and had put down roots and were waiting for the lake to come up so they could float once again in all their majesty with succulent bulbous stems as floating green bulbs and luscious lavender flowers that truly do imitate Hyacinth flowers. Well, they were negative at the idea. Water Hyacinth, they proceeded to tell me was a noxious weed that choked waterways, etc., and as I listened, I had secret visions of my childhood in the South Texas bayous were the Water Hyacinth grew in great mats, providing cover for bait fish like minnows and added oxygen for water quality and clarity.

I argued in defense of the glorious water plant of my youth, telling them that when the White Amur Grass Carp were unintentionally released into Lake Houston that it became a fishless mud hole for over 20 years, and how not one sprig of Water Hyacinth or other vegetation existed in that lake for over 2 decades. But my arguments would not turn them. They certainly did not want any Water Hyacinth on their shoreline. 

So I sought the advice of Google and found an alarming bit of news. Texas (Fish and Gamer Dept. of) had seen to it that over 10 years ago that it became illegal to own, transport, or nurture Water Hyacinth. The fine? Oh well, it was stiffer than any possession of ANY substance known to man, including Marijuana, I would guess. Each Water Hyacinth plant carried its own and separate fine of from $200-$2,000! That’s per plant! And a jail term of not more than 180 days or both. I had plans to transfer perhaps 100 plants from the cove to where the Water Hyacinth had retreated to my own beach, and quickly, the minimum fine would have been $20,000 and the maximum, $200,000! And the State of Texas means business. 

But my neighbors proved to be politically correct about the hyacinth. I don’t think they knew that the plants were illegal, but I will tell them and watch a smile come to their collective faces. It’s always good to be right.

These glorious, non-invasive (in the eye of this Texan) plants of my childhood still exist all over Texas waters at this writing and are not a menace to water navigation or Texans in any way. What has the state become? Take a look at the wording, short and sweet, of this law that Texas has on the books to protect its citizens. Texas Law against Water Hyacinth and its Creator, God Almighty.

Needless to say I lost my passion for the Water Hyacinth revival project. Ah, passion.

“I grow old….I grow old…..I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”   -T.S. Eliot

Massive Spending, Massive Debt, Massive Interest and a Cure

Someone asked me today to call them up this afternoon and please give them a lesson in what is going on in our financial world.  Does that bring a smile to your face?  It brings a crooked one to mine.  How could I possibly know?  I think at times that maybe the Illuminati doesn’t even know.  And word is they are supposed to know sh—from Shinola.  If those world barons of finance and government control really exist, right? Stocks have crashed this week almost 600 points on the Dow, Gold is down today, September 23, 2011 to $1666.00 per troy ounce (whoops, now at $1650 in less than 10 minutes) from a high 30 days ago of $1924.00.  Wait, make that $1648 in less than a minute!  Silver follows gold like a thirsty Heifer being led single file to the slaughter.  So what’s going on?  Precious metals seem to be on a tailspin death dive after climbing steadily without much of a hitch for many months now.  The boys in the back room of financial institutions recommend having lots of physical gold and some gold certificates in your portfolio.  Why?  Because, the smart money says, you might need it if paper fiat money inflates off the face of the earth and  your dollars burn up and go “poof” from the Fed’s printing too many of them.  Last count shows that the Fed has printed over 2 Trillion in new bills in the last 2 and a half years.  Such dilution of value is scary.  Prices at the grocery have already shot up like a rocket in just a year.  Is inflation beginning to rear its ugly head as we were warned it would?  And if gold and silver would replace dollars as a medium of exchange for gasoline, food, and other staples, would this be a world we would want to live in?  A chilling thought.

Greece, they say, is close to the edge of the world in default and is about to fall off.  So what does that mean?  Well, one of the proposals to get Greece on financial life-support once again mandates giving Greek bonds a 50% haircut.  What that means is that normally a bond matures and is worth a preset redeemable amount of 100 cents on the dollar.  That is called PAR.  So magic scissors come down with an unseen hand and cut the bond interest rate in half.

If you hold $10,000 Greek bonds @ 8% interest per year worth of Greek bonds that were sold to you at Par yesterday, now the interest rate has been haircut to 4%.  So instead of getting $800 per year off your Greek bonds, you will now receive $400 per year.  Pay no attention to the $10,000 printed on neither the bond certificate nor the man behind the screen with the scissors.  Your $10,000 Greek bonds would be worth much less than $10,000 due to the arbitrary adjustment of interest downward.  Would it be apropos to say, hair(cut) today, gone tomorrow?  Or par today…….gone tomorrow?  It is indeed a messy business haircutting the value of bonds from Greece and other countries in the world just so the countries can stay afloat.

So what does this do for Greece?  It cuts their debt in half.  Instantly.  Greece is in business again.  The amount of interest Greece has to pay on its debt to maintain its life as a real country with traffic cops, mayors, sanitation workers, dept. of tourism, and national parks like the Pantheon, for example, is cut in half.  Buys more time quite neatly.  And those left holding the bag are the bondholders whose capital in Greece bonds is cut in half.  To get there, to reorganize Greece must default on its original bonds.

Greece is in the world spotlight, so how is this affecting world markets in other lands, and what is causing their markets to plunge, too?  The ripple effect of fear seems to be alive and well.  Simply stated, the rest of the world fears that they might be next.  And the stock markets in most all countries and their massive amounts of borrowed money in the form of bonds is susceptible to the same austere ring of “No tickee, no washee.”  Everything falls down in disarray when countries default on their loans.  And Americans are feeling a bit skeptical what with 14.3 Trillion dollars borrowed and spent and the compound interest that is accumulating with every tick of the clock.  So what might happen if the United States would ever default on its debt?  Perish the thought.  Things like government services would cease to be.  Social Security checks would not get sent out.  Hospitals would not accept Medicare.  Governor Rick Perry might be hard pressed to pay his electric bill, but not really because it is certain he has emergency generators in the wings. Buses would stop running.  There would be a run on banks with mobs seeking to get their money in their hot hands.  Police, firemen and garbage men would be without pay and fuel to get to their destinations.  Pandemonium would prevail.

How did we get to this place?  You know, on the precipice to disaster where many nations of the world have borrowed so heavily that they could just fall like dominos one after another?  More to the point, could we have prevented such a crisis?  Why did no one protest very strongly when all this borrowing began?  In a Cabinet meeting of Bush II, a question arose about borrowing more money to finance all the wars, the expensive toilet seats Uncle Sam buys.  Bush II was against it, but Cheney piped up that “It is our mandate now to follow through on military spending to defeat terrorism, and Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”

A deficit is the shortfall of funds that you need to borrow to keep operating as a nation of governed people.  That is the amount short of federal income from taxes and royalties that is needed to keep the country running and the bills paid on time.

In Greece’s case, Goldman-Sachs propped the country up with derivatives, a temporary measure to buy them time, and derivatives turn out usually to be more disastrous than real cures.  And they were.  Goldman only made things worse.

When all the countries of the world are so accustomed to borrowing the shortfall amounts needed to run government services and then that ability to borrow is suddenly frozen, it becomes crunch time.  What to do?  Right now, Japan and China are making noises about not getting further into debt with the United States.  Those countries are threatening to stop lending to the United States to cover its needs in paying for services and commodities already on the books and a vital part of America’s existence as a nation.  China says it favors taking away the US dollar as the world currency.  Now, for example, if a country wishes to buy oil it first has to convert its currency to US dollars, then purchase the oil.  Many economists  predict financial Armageddon for America if that were to happen.  Who can say what the financial landscape would look like if it came to pass?  No one knows, but it looks grim.

The tough times began to come to our shores when borrowing and spending became a way of life.  Ronald Reagan borrowed 3 Trillion dollars in 8 years to defeat Russia, the Evil Empire, he called the Russians.  Then Bush II borrowed and spent an additional 4 Trillion dollars on attacking and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq.  It has been over 8 years since that time and the debt has grown immensely.  We cannot pay just the interest on what we have borrowed from the Chinese.  We ran out of money.  And now it appears we will run out of lenders to help us stave off bankruptcy and shutting the government down.  See it’s not just Greece’s problem, it is ours and the rest of the world’s problem.  We borrowed too much and spent too much for our own good.  President Obama and the Congress have said much about the problem we face.  There has been much jaw-boning, but very little progress on meaningful solutions.  We borrowed too much and lived too high on the hog, that’s all.  Plain and simple.  So what will happen when the sh—hits the fan?  I don’t know.  Will angry people all over the world riot for food and water and medicine freshly ripped from their hands because now their respective government cannot pay the piper?  I hate to say it but I don’t know that either.  It is hard to know much after everything of real value gets shelled out and the husks discarded on the ground.

Should we buy US Treasury Bonds now?  The yield is at an historic 60-year low in yield because of great world demand in panic scenarios.  But why would they want US bonds when we have a 14.3 Trillion dollar debt?  Does it seem like the US is a good risk right now on paying interest and making good the principal of its bonds?  It would appear that that is true as the world flocks to US Treasuries like never before.  Apparently the world still sees the United States and its recently downgraded Standard and Poor’s paper as a better risk than any other time in history.  But why?  I wish I knew that answer too.  But I don’t.  These are new times.

A Blackjack dealer in Vegas told me once that if the world ever fell upon hard times there were 2 staples to own and hoard.  These 2 items, she said, would never lose their luster and demand, and would sit on the shelf forever with no tending.  I begged her to tell me about these 2 items, and she said with a wry smile, “Whisky and Cigarettes.”  Hmmm.  In lieu of the great financial gurus and geniuses that have led us to this dark crossroads in our history, and their track record, maybe Whisky and Cigarettes would be one of the best hard-times investment vehicles one could buy.  To trade, of course, for like food and gasoline.

Could Rick Perry Become Our Next “Rock Star” President? Part II

Ah, comes now Governor Goodhair as the late Molly Ivins used to call Rick Perry, governor of Texas.  He has soared to the top of all Republican candidates in the upcoming 2012 presidential race.  My, my, where to begin? In Part I we compared Perry to the exceptionally evil alien creature in the movie “Independence Day” who wanted the whole human race to die, to be exterminated.  This allegorical diversion is to illustrate how well Perry is suited to carry out the wishes and the desires of two of the most heartless Teabagger/Republicans ever to get America by the throat:  Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.  Remember them?  The former wanted Social Security to wither and die on the vine.  Well, what better candidate than Perry who just made it plain that he thinks Social Security is unconstitutional?  Forget that it helps people, the commoners, the working people.  They are the problem that needs to be eliminated.  Norquist announced that he wished to drown all government social programs that help people in his bath tub.  The “Beast” he called such programs.  Good metaphor, Grover.  I bet you almost had an orgasm when Perry as governor of Texas, annihilated funding of the SCHIPS medical aid to children program in the state of Texas.  Bet several children of poorer working families bit the dust in the true Neocon spirit of drowning people and the programs that help them in the bath tub.

When Bush II left office as governor of Texas, of the 10-billion dollar state budget deficit left Perry, he said, “I’m glad I’m not going to have to be the one to clean up this mess.”  Not to worry, Perry went right to work.  He threw over 160,000 disadvantaged and handicapped children under the bus.  Perry cut them off SCHIPS, a government insurance program that made insurance affordable to those without a lot of money.  Without hesitation Perry kicked the kids to the curb.  Without resources many had to die, Perry should be proud.  What a president he would make, considering some of the other Darth Vader types afoot in our Capitol as we speak.  Paul Ryan uses a laser scalpel when cutting benefits for the working man.  His counterpart Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin has led the charge against teachers and unions to where they would suffer even more under the foot of the new GOP who has no fear of downsizing the poor and working class while adamantly standing fast on no new tax increases for the rich.

Hey Tea Baggers! Why don’t we ever hear from you on all the borrowing and spending that plunged us $14 Trillion dollars into debt as a nation?  Can’t blame the teachers and unions for that.  That came from the idiot borrowing and spending under 2 presidents, both of them Republicans:  Reagan and Bush II.  Reagan was fighting to build up our military to defeat the Evil Empire, Russia which only cost us $3 Trillion.  And Bush II chalked up $4 Trillion borrowed and spent, PLUS all the eternal interest to attack Iraq and Afghanistan for reasons long forgotten.  HALF of our National Debt due to two Republican presidents, thank you very much.  Why don’t some of you Tea Baggers take a night course in Accounting 101?  And learn to say something intelligent for a change?  You can begin by redefining what a “Conservative” is.

But wait, there’s more.  What about the Gardasil vaccine Perry mandated as Governor of Texas?  This vaccine was to be given arbitrarily to all Texas sixth-grade school girls as ongoing protection against the sexually-transmitted HPV Virus.  And why did Perry withdraw so abruptly from such a controversial decision right before he declared his run for the presidency?  Or was it because his former Chiefs of Staff were in on a boondoggle with the vaccine maker, Merck?  Take your pick.  Remembering the heartless alien who wanted all the human race dead, what would a few sixth-grade girls matter?

Perry professes to be a born-again Christian who believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old.  He is a strong homophobe who would keep the GOP in lockstep against gay marriage, no doubt about it.  Anti-Abortion, to the very end.  He sees no conflict in declaring that our Constitution is written with a Christian nation in mind.  Forget that all the famous founding fathers were Deists, not Christians.  But when you are re-writing history a la Big Brother the truth is totally secondary to the divine mission at hand.  And in Perry’s case that would be to rid the land of the Democrats like David rid the Holy Land of the Philistines.  See, Democrats pander to and help and protect the downtrodden, the poor, the have-nots, and Perry is out to drown them and all their government programs in Grover Norquist’s bath tub.  Forget them low-lifes who won’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and work for a living like the rest of us.  Perry hates them all and vows to rid the nation of all entitlement programs, if elected, by cracky.

Funny thing but you never hear Perry quoting Jesus’ parables about helping thy neighbor, or going 2 miles with him when he bids you go 1, and yes, the most passionate parable of all about the Good Samaritan.  Yet Perry is an avowed Christian fundamentalist.  Help thy neighbor is not Perry, though. Why before Perry gets through he might have re- written the whole New Testament about brotherly love and all to where all them freeloaders might just disappear from the planet like the alien yearned for in “Independence Day.”

In killing all the misfits and tax dollar drains on the pockets of the chosen people (the Neocons), Perry even acts like God Almighty as a prelude to his election as president.  He has executed prisoners whose innocence was proven before they were killed.  Just before an expert was to testify in the murder case of Todd Willingham who was wrongfully convicted of the arson deaths of his three daughters in Corsicana.  Perry restacked the Texas Forensic Science Commission the way Tom De Lay redistricted Texas voting districts, and appointed a crony, John Bradley, to head it.  Immediately Bradley cancelled Willingham’s hearing before the new evidence could see the light of day shine upon it, and Willingham was executed.  Wonder if Perry saw himself as God the avenger of all that is riff raff, regardless of guilt or innocence?  Was Pontius Pilate correct about “What is truth?”  Guess so when Perry’s hand is on the beaker switch.  Pretty rough stuff, Rick.  Reducing the Population Perry-Style

Then there is Perry’s total indifference when it comes to stealing Texas special purpose set aside funds.  Take  the Texas Electric Assistance Fund set up for low income customers to help them pay their light bills.  What with Texas in the throes of the worst drought on record and wildfires and triple-digit days as we speak sweeping much of the state, you got to wonder where the money went to help Texans.  Wasn’t  the money set up for that sole purpose?   When you are about to run for president you got to look noble.  But when you are about drowning the Beast you got to wear more than one hat.

And the Teachers Retirement System Board where Governor Perry took millions of dollars set aside for teachers and fees and gave it back to the firms that helped him get elected.  That little “privatization” trick Perry has perfected.  Death by Privatization.  Catchy sound.

What about Perry’s statement that Bernanke’s printing of more money at the Fed as “Treason?”  I got to wonder what Perry thought about his mentor, George W. Bush, lying to the world about our dire and urgent need to attack Iraq because, he said, Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction pointed at U. S. Cities.  Did it matter that our own CIA told Bush not to use the bogus British intelligence report that Hussein was attempting to buy Yellow Cake Uranium from Niger?  Nope.  Life is unimportant when you are dealing with members of the Have-Nots, and those who attacked us on 911 like Hussein.  Or not.  And Perry is the man for the job, damn the truth, full speed ahead.

Perry stonewalled the $25 billion dollar Texas budget shortfall just as slick as owl shit on a sycamore limb.  He told us Texas was the chosen state that had more jobs and the best balance sheet of any state in the union.  But Texas’ shortfall, all considered, is right up there and looking to surpass California’s at this writing.  The shortfall pinches.  Texas is laying off hundreds of teachers and government workers as we speak to address Texas budget shortfalls and planned budget cuts levied on the innocent.  What a guy!

Adding insult to injury Perry is involved in many scandalous maneuvers to reward his cronies who elected him by favoring them with funny money Texas slush funds established for set purposes.  And because they sound so lofty, the funds can disappear in an instant (poof) and find their way into the pockets of cronies like one of Perry’s favorite buddies, Red McCombs, co-founder of Clear Channel Communications.  He and Perry aim to build a Formula One Racetrack in Austin, and over $25 million in Texas state funds are on the chopping block.  Every year.  That and other such slights of hand at the governor’s office in Austin  is where the tax money for teachers, education, and other programs that serve Texans pours out of Austin like a big hole in Lake Travis Dam.

Texas Tax Dollars Favor the Rich Thanks to Perry

Oh, and what about Perry’s stated desire for Texas to secede from the United States?  A secessionist running for president of the country he wants to leave high and dry by walking Texas out of the Union?  Somebody pinch me. Have we voters stumbled and hit our head on a big rock or what? This dude is far worse than Dubya ever aspired to be.

So what if you ruin the whole 100s of millions of working class and their families by favoring companies who take their factories offshore?  What if people starve for lack of a government that cares about the common man?  European countries who make it work for all the people in healthcare, pensions, and vacations, have got to think the USA is one big fruitcake.  A nation gone cuckoo with the Neocons and misguided Tea Baggers like Palin and Boehner beating all us working class, middle class, and poor Americans like a cow being driven with a stick.  And telling us it is the way Jesus would have wanted it.  As a country we stick out like a possum at a Beagle picnic.  Perry’s credo does not agree with those decent countries that care about people, their fellow men and women, and decency.  Perry’s is a philosophy of survival of the fittest.  And of the dishonest.

So what happens to all the millions of Americans to be eliminated?  No problem.  To take their place at menial wages here at home, you got the illegals from Mexico, the vermin that Republicans love to say they hate, but secretly want to keep as servants, maids, landscapers, factory workers here (wink, wink).  Then you shift the manufacturing jobs overseas to China, to Mexico where labor is cheap and sparkling new offshore factories bought with Bush’s 2 Trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich are belching smoke and thriving.

You heard it here, Perry, if elected to president, will be the final Neocon Buzzard that picks the bones of what used to be the United States of America, a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Take heed.  Perry has given us fair warning of what lies ahead in his demented world if he has anything to say about it.  And he ain’t no rock star.