![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/\nbushsaud.jpg\")
In
\n many of the science fiction novels of our youth, the world was run by
\n mega-corporations which, in some cases wore vestigial
\n trappings of democratic government, and in others had done away with
\n secular government altogether. A hundred years ago, futurists from
\n Orwell to Marx saw capitalism overpowering the authentically revolutionary
\n potential
\n of
\n democracy and
\n seizing the reins of power, either directly or indirectly.<\/p>\n
One can make
\n a strong case that that day has arrived, and we are living in the first
\n Petrocracy in history. It is government by industry, and the first
\n industry to achieve it was the dominant economic force behind industrial
\n development since coal became indispensable at the dawn of the industrial
\n revolution: the petrochemical\/oil industry.<\/p>\n
The industrial revolution started in England, and the
\n Europeans were the first to catch on to the key role the world’s oil
\n reserves were going to play in the next 500 years or so of the history
\n of the planet. In fact, by the turn of the century, it was obvious
\n to the brain trusts in London, Brussels and Paris that whoever controlled
\n the world’s oil would control the world.<\/p>\n
Which is why, after defeating the Huns and the Ottoman
\n Turks in World War One, a bunch of power-mad dead white guys sat down
\n in a smoke-filled room in England and drew some lines on a map, creating
\n the modern oil states of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates,
\n as well as the modern states of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Which they promptly awarded
\n to local warlords and fanatical families which had helped them in the war
\n against the Germans and Turks. We are now reaping the bitter harvest
\n of this idiocy.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the United States didn’t need that Middle
\n Eastern oil. They had plenty of their own; in 1900 the US was the
\n world’s biggest producer of oil, by far, as well as the biggest consumer,
\n by a smaller margin. That the Bush administration represents the ultimate
\n ascension of this power nexus to the reins of the world’s economy and
\n power structure can hardly be questioned.<\/p>\n
It is not an accident that the biggest companies, the It is no accident that the price of gasoline has It is no accident that Bush junta decided to invade It is no accident that the Bush and Cheney families It is no accident that the bulk of the billions being It is no accident that this administration supports These things are not accidents, nor are they coincidences. The In a way, this is an inevitable, organic development However, it troubles us deeply that the mechanism of We absolutely need our oil. Even a temporary reduction We hate these men for getting us into this situation Anyone who has known real junkies knows how they end In many of the science fiction novels of our youth, the world was run by mega-corporations which, in some cases wore vestigial trappings of democratic government, and in others had done away with secular government altogether. A hundred years ago, … Continue reading
\n dominant economic behemoths in the world today, are almost all involved
\n in the production or consumption of petroleum. Here is the list of the
\n dozen biggest corporations in the entire world in 2005: 1\tWal-Mart
\n Stores\t
\n 2 British Petroleum 3 Exxon Mobil 4 Royal Dutch\/Shell Group\t5
\n General Motors\t
\n 6 DaimlerChrysler\t7 Toyota Motor\t8 Ford Motor 9 General Electric
\n 10 Total\t\t
\n 11 Chevron \t12\tConocoPhillips. 10 out of 12 either oil or
\n car companies. (from Fortune<\/a>)<\/p>\n
\n doubled under the current administration. American oil companies
\n have long looked with envy at their counterparts across the pond, and
\n lamented that European consumers had been conditioned to accept $3 a
\n gallon gasoline,
\n and like
\n it. All it took to pull off the trick in the US was some astute political
\n maneuvering, manipulation of the media and a couple of small wars.<\/p>\n
\n and occupy the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet
\n just at the time the world is starting to run out of oil. How dumb
\n do they think we are? (We know, pretty damn dumb)<\/p>\n
\n are intimate amigos with the Saudi Royal family, despite the fact that
\n their country bred almost all of the 9\/11 terrorists and the majority
\n of their subjects hate our guts and would like to see us dead. <\/p>\n
\n thrown at Iraqi “reconstruction” is going to the Haliburton Corporation in a desperate attempt to get the oil production back
\n on line .<\/p>\n
\n drilling in the arctic reserve and opposes spending money to develop
\n alternatives to petroleum dependence.<\/p>\n
\n Dowbrigade does not believe in coincidences. These things are facts and
\n the pattern that they form is impossible to deny. We are living
\n in a Petrocracy.<\/p>\n
\n in the life of our species and its predominance on this planet. Economics
\n and trade has produced the first world-wide network for movement of people,
\n products and data; it stands to reason that the biggest players in the
\n petroleum based economy we have should run the game. Somebody was going
\n to do it, why not them?<\/p>\n
\n this group’s ascendancy has been to induce an addiction in our beloved
\n country so grave that the addict in question may not survive. And
\n make no mistake – the United States is just as addicted to oil as the
\n beatest
\n junkie on the lower east side hustling for dime bags. <\/p>\n
\n of 5 or 10% would upset our lives like nothing we have experienced since
\n WWII – maybe more, as we are much more addicted now than we were then.
\n Going cold turkey would be unthinkable. Life as we know it in the
\n United States would cease to exist. Millions would starve.<\/p>\n
\n – both those dead Europeans and their modern scions currently running
\n the world economy – and the United States. We despair that our dear,
\n decent Democracy has been hopelessly corrupted by its
\n addiction,
\n that
\n it is
\n now willing
\n to
\n lie,
\n bully and
\n steal to get
\n its fix, and that worst of all, like all true junkies, it is lying to
\n and
\n deceiving itself about the true state of affairs.<\/p>\n
\n up. They hit bottom and either die or go into some long and painful
\n process of putting their lives back together again. Few ever make
\n it all the way back. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"